Management of Aberdeen Angus Cattle. 
99 
and if cows are to produce healthy calves, and that at the proper 
time, and their milk is to be nutritious, the food and water 
supplied to them must be free from deleterious properties. It 
is pretty generally recognised that the quality and quantity of 
milk are affected according to the rations the cow is fed upon, 
and experts are well acquainted with the fact that when certain 
drugs are given traces of them can be quickly detected in the 
milk. To illustrate this, I may mention that I was recently 
asked to advise as to the treatment of a dairy cow that had lost 
her appetite and gone off her milk. I ordered some powders 
containing carbonate of ammonia to be given. The cow made 
a good recovery, and in a few days was feeding and milking 
again all right, but her milk smelt so strongly of ammonia that 
it could not be used. I mention this simply to show the close 
affinity that exists between the contents of the stomach and the 
quality of the milk secreted. It illustrates how special proper- 
ties of food, water, or medicinal agents become absorbed, and 
are afterwards secreted or excreted, as the case may be, by 
special organs. Further, seeing that the quality of the blood 
depends largely upon the quality of the food and water supplied, 
it shows how important wholesome food and water must be to 
in-calvers. The existence of the foetus depends upon a pure 
supply of blood from the dam ; without it the foetus cannot 
live — it is poisoned, and abortion is the result. In 1881 ten of 
my cows aborted within twenty-three days of each other, and 
the cause was clearly traced to the water supply, which was 
found to be polluted with sewage. 
At all times, from calfhood upwards, it is important to try 
to keep the digestive apparatus in good working order ; it is 
better to prevent indigestion and the troubles that belong to it 
than to have to cure them. With this object in view much may 
be learnt by observing the natural habits and peculiarities ot 
animals. During summer, when cattle, and horses too, are at 
grass, it may be noticed that although they of necessity con- 
sume a certain amount of soil with the grass they eat, yet still 
they may occasionally be seen to indulge in licking or even 
in eating soil ; doubtless the soil is required, and it acts as a 
corrective to the acidity of the stomach. But this craving for 
soil is much more developed in winter, when the cattle are con- 
fined to the house, and the higher the quality of the food 
supplied the greater is the demand for soil — or its equivalents, 
rock-salt, chalk, or lime; even young calves may be seen to 
lick the lime-wash from off the walls, and the lime from between 
the stones of the wall. But it is in cattle that have been 
highly fed and forced for some time that the craving for soil is 
