426 
The Management of a Shorthorn Herd. 
cattle, for there was very seldom the least trouble in getting 
animals to breed. Writing a few months later, the same corre- 
spondent said that the season of last year had been exception- 
ally bad in that respect, an unusually large number of cows 
having returned to the bull. The remarks in both letters applied 
not only to the Shorthorns, but to the common stock of the 
country. That air and pasture have much to do with this is 
notorious, and a change will often do that which no amount 
of management in one place can effect. The late Mr. S. E. 
Bolden's success, especially his extraordinary good fortune in 
raising a family from old Duchess 51st — a speculative purchase 
at a risk-price — and numerous offspring from some old Warlaby 
cows bought as doubtful breeders, was attributed in great mea- 
sure to the facility he had for changing his cows about between 
Springfield Hall and his sea-side farm of Red Bank. I cannot 
dismiss the impression, I will not say conclusion, although it 
almost amounts to belief, that there is in the air of Ardfert, which 
is near the coast, and probably in the richness of the grass-land, 
something to account for the apparently exceptional readiness of 
the suckling cows, whose calves actually live with them, to breed 
again. My own experience of the suckling versus the hand- 
milking system is, like that of Mr. Drewry at Holker, Messrs. 
Gaitskell at Hall Santon, and many others, strongly in favour 
of the latter as regards the readiness of cows to breed again ; yet 
the land upon which the Shorthorns at Lune Bank were kept is 
some of the richest grass-land in the North of England. With 
regard to the early breeding of heifers, on the same land, 
the safest plan by far was always to let them breed early. If 
they were not in-calf before they were two years old, I gene- 
rally had trouble with them. From fifteen to twenty months, 
according to size and strength, was the usual time for beginning ; 
and I did not find that heifers which were mothers at two 
years of age were in any way injured, in either early or after 
life. There was another point, besides. Cattle of a heavy, flesh- 
making sort, on good grazing land, could not be got to milk 
unless they bred early. When they brought their first calves at 
two or two-and-a-half years old, they seldom failed as milkers ; 
and they were at any time ready enough to make flesh when 
required, often when not required to do so. 
But in addition to contradictory evidence on matters of fact, 
we have to deal with contradictory opinions upon questions of 
expediency. For instance, the dry food for young stock — 
should the corn be merely crushed or bruised, or should it be 
fine-ground ? I have stated the practice of different breeders ; 
the reader will draw his own conclusions. The turnip question, 
in connection with abortion, is one on which wide differences of 
