53 
ILLUSTRATED STOCK DOCTOR. 
tivo of parts not seen. It may be permitted to add that; in all the scrub 
cattle that I have grazed and fed, I have never found < no with fine silky 
hair that did not fatten well and inako a desirable bullock. 
Color. 
Short-Horns aro red or white, or these colors blended as roan or pied. 
Fashion, for the time, may make one or the other of these colors 
popular. This is probably so now with the red color. It may be so of 
another color in a few years. A caprice that excludes all but the red 
color is injurious. It limits improvement and coniines it to a limited 
portion of the breed. It encourages the use of inferior animals just to 
obtain a fashionable color, and rejects better ones because they arc of 
different color. Thero is, in consequence, great danger of deterioration 
of this noble breed of cattle as a result of such puerile practices. If 
the breed is to be kept up to its past high standard the very best selec- 
tions should bo bred regardless of color, provided it is the one peculiar to 
the breed. We would admonish breeders and lovers of this noble race 
of cattle to give no encouragement to such departures ; they are evil, 
and that continually. 
Perfection. 
Both ignorant and cultivated alike ; the ordinary breeder and the scien- 
tific one ; the practical man and the visionary one ; each will establish in 
Ilia own mind an ideal of what any object should bo. When this ideal 
ja required to stand the test of practical experience, to be defined by a 
scale of points, not one in ten, even among those who think themselves 
competent to establish a standard of excellence can do sc, point by point. 
The reason is he has never read, nor has he educated himself in any other 
way to that exactitude of judgment required in matters of such nicety ; 
in other words wo have not tho scientific idea of what is necessary in the 
premises ; no absolute rule to go by, and so tho whole amounts, after all, 
to something very like mere guessing. For dairy purposes the udder of 
the cow is the strong point. In animals bred for their flesh, the meat ia 
the essential thing and also that it be laid on in tho prime parts. 
To enable any person to judge more or less correctly according to the 
study he gives, and the manner in which he has educated his eye and 
touch, wo append the scalo of points for judging Short-Horns, as found 
in the American Herd-Book. 
In studying this scale it will do quite well for all beef breeders — alwaya 
bearing in mind tho difference in make up of the breed. Ti ns the Shorn- 
Horns will bo found full in tho rump behind, the Devons and Hereford 
more pointed, and essentially different in other respects ; yet these very 
