504 GOOD AND BAD POINTS OF CATTLE, AND 
which may also be accounted for. Its having a greater freedom 
for the assimilation of nitrogen — one of the compounds of am- 
monia — a chemical agent that is abundantly given off from the 
skin and uniting with the unctuous exudation of the cutis, gives 
to the skin that peculiar saponaceous feel, so necessary as the 
index of that organ performing its healthy functions, and may be 
ranked as a sure symbol of early maturity. 
The ears should be of a fair proportion, not over large, thin in 
texture, and capable of free and quick motion. A good ear de- 
notes good quality ; a coarse ear, thick and large, is generally 
associated with much coarseness in the animal. A good ear is 
nearly always found in combination with a prominent and beam- 
ing eye, with thin palpebrse or eyelids. 
This development of eye is most times in unison with a good 
and clean horn, tending to a very slight red at the radicals or 
roots. This indicates also a kindly disposition to early maturity. 
The happy and beaming eye of the healthy animal shews con- 
tentment, a very desirable omen as to the quick growth of the 
animal, while, on the contrary, a heavy eye with a want of viva- 
city, with thick eyelids, and a too visible conjunctiva or white of 
the eye, is indicative of an unhappy and restless temper, incom- 
patible with a good and profitable feeder. The eye of content- 
ment, of quietude, and of calm expression of countenance, is alone 
compatible with that temperament so conducive to accumulation 
of flesh and fat. These qualities, if derived hereditarily, will be 
maintained throughout the whole evolution of growth : they are, 
also, well known signs of early disposition to maturity. The 
hereditary principle should always be borne in mind. The old 
adage of “ like will beget like” — whether applied to the symme- 
trical law of external form, of quality, of temper (either good or 
bad), of constitution, of a disposition to make either fat or muscle, 
or to any other cause inherently acquired. Therefore the only 
method to ensure those qualities which are so essential to the 
welfare of the farmer, is to commence primogenitively with the 
best and most approved principles that have hitherto been found 
to ensure a healthy and profitable stock. 
I shall now speak of bone, as being the frame-work on which 
all the materials of the body are built. It should, when examined 
in the living animal, have the appearance of being fine and small 
in structure. It then augurs a good quality and being readily 
disposed to fatten, although it sometimes betrays too great a de- 
licacy of constitution. A bone may be small from a consolida- 
tion of its structural parts, yet be capable of sustaining more 
weight, superincumbently, than bone of a larger size, and whose 
size depends only on the cellular expansion, and not on a cylin- 
