432 
Tlie Management of a Shorthorn Herd. 
diligence and judgment, we should never recommend for the 
adoption of a farmer upon a small holding, or a poor soil ; 
unless, indeed, he adopt the plan of buying food on a large 
scale — a principle upon which a three-decker could be farmed. 
... A more wretched animal than the Shorthorn on scant 
keep it is difficult to conceive — a faded tulip where a cowslip 
should have been." 
Mr. R. O. Pringle, in his useful work ' On the Live-Stock of 
the Farm,' observes that " from the day when the calf comes 
into the world to the day when the matured animal is consigned 
to the butcher, the rule to be observed should be — continuous 
progression, and no retrogression.^^ This applies as aptly to stock 
reared for breeding purposes as to stock brought up for grazing. 
Retrogression is sheer waste of time and food, therefore of 
money. Without a good grip of these two elementary prin- 
ciples, as advanced by Mr. Pringle and Mr. Holt Beever, it is 
useless to attempt the management of a Shorthorn herd. Mr. 
Holt Beever does not imply that the pedigree Shorthorn cannot 
do as much as a common-bred animal upon ordinary keep. 
The Shorthorn, if owning a pedigree that means (as a pedigree 
should mean) the inheritance of personal worth, most assuredly 
can not only equal, but far surpass the common-bred animal, 
just as good land without manure can yield more than bad land 
under the same condition. That analogy is good for further 
application. The impoverishment of a highly improved flesh- 
making breed of cattle is, like the impoverishment of highly 
improved land, irrecoverable loss. Something of money value, 
which has been possessed, is in both cases allowed to go for no 
return or consideration. Several of the illustrations which I 
have taken prove what may be done with the Shorthorn upon 
very moderate keep, if care be taken not to stunt the growth nor 
to check the steady development of muscle. 
Many subjects connected with the management of Shorthorns 
will suggest themselves to the reader, probably, as subjects that 
might have legitimately come within the scope of this treatise ; 
such, for instance, as analyses of food, or classification of 
various foods according to their uses — to make bone, fat, or 
muscle ; to stimulate, to give warmth, &c. But these chiefly 
are in themselves special subjects already most ably handled 
in the volumes of the ' Journal ' by professional and other com- 
petent authorities. The veterinary parts of the subject, like- 
wise, I have studied to avoid as far as possible ; and as I have 
therefore abstained from quoting the best opinions, the necessity 
of avoiding also unprofessional nostrums was obvious. Specifics 
for the prevention or cure of diseases, and matters of that sort, 
might fill a volume of petty recipes, useful in its way. The idea 
