296 
COMMON OX. 
room ; thus, at the end of every six’ months, the 
creature loses and gains, till at the age of three 
years, all the cutting teeth are renewed, and then 
they are long, pretty white, and equal ; but in pro- 
portion as the animal advances in years, they become 
irregular and black, their inequalities become 
smoother, and the animal less capable of chewing 
its food. Thus the cow often declines from this 
single cause ; for as it is obliged to eat a great 
deal to support life, and as the smoothness of the 
teeth makes the difficulty of chewing great, a suffi- 
cient quantity of food cannot be supplied to the 
stomach. Thus the poor animal sinks in the midst 
of plenty, and every year grows leaner and leaner, 
till it dies. 
The horns are another, and a surer method of 
determining this animal's age. At three years old, 
they shed the outer skin of the horns ; at four 
years of age, the cow has small, pointed, neat, 
smooth horns, thickest near the head ; at five the 
horns become larger, and are marked round with 
the foriiier year’s growth. Thus, while the animal 
continues to live, the horns continue to lengthen ; 
and every year a new ring is added at the root ; so 
that allowing three years before their appearance, 
and then reckoning the number of rings, we have in 
both together the animal’s age exactly. 
As we have indisputably the best breed of horned 
cattle of any in Europe, so it was not without the 
same assiduity that we came to excel in these, as in 
our horses. The breed of cows has been entirely 
improved by a foreign mixture, properly adapted 
to supply the imperfections of our own. Such at 
are purely British, are far inferior in size to those 
on many parts of the continent ; but those which 
we have thus improved, by far excel all others. 
Our Lincolnshire kind derive their s*ze from the 
Holstein breed ; and the large hornless cattle that 
