CATTLE. 
129 
soonest attain maturity so as to be fit for feeding We stop not now to 
examine whether or not the two principles of taking on fat earlv as well 
as rapidly are necessarily connected— though it is very probable they 
arc and that a tendency to lay on fat will show itself at a verv early 
P er ',° d ? th . e f 11 ™' s ^story ; though it may possibly be a mere result 
ot the bleeders skill to obtain the two qualities combined. 
Now, every good grazier knows an animal which will thrive that be- 
ing a simple matter of judgment. A skillful man will select out of a 
drove, five, or ten, or twenty animals, and nineteen of the twenty will 
be the best grazers for his particular farm. The eye guides him par- 
tially the signs we have described in our remarks on the breeds of cat- 
tle also but more than all he is directed by the touch. 
Having selected the animal, the mode of feeding him is to turn him 
out into a grass field skirting a river— if such be within the grazier’s 
power— where alluvium of ages has been washed into the soil so deep 
that the roots of the herbage cannot find its bottom, and so firmly com- 
minuted as to admit of the minutest filaments of the radicles of the 
plants to penetrate it with facility, so porous as to admit the air to 
enter and the water to filter gently through, and containing its elements 
in a state of solution so delicate that they are ready for food to the 
plants which consume them; but last, though of greater importance 
than all, having the elements of vegetation in plentiful abundauec. Now 
all men know that on such a soil, in five, six, or even in four months, a 
can animal will become fat. He has all he requires— a little attention 
to see that lie is well is all that is needed, from the time of his beim* 
placed in the pasture to being taken out to the butcher. There is 
neither labor, pains, or expense incurred. lie is worth twenty-five dol- 
lars more when he is taken out than when he was put in, and that is all 
the grazier knows or cares for. Now, we shall find out the requisites 
here foi feeding, strictly laid down. There is plenty of fresh and highly 
nutritive food ; there is scarcely any labor in searching for and obtain- 
ing it; with water, and shelter, and warmth; and also plenty of air and 
ireedom from constraint. J 
Now, this is what the feeder must aim at in his winter-fed cattle. They 
cannot teed in the open air; the cold and wet would deprive him of the 
flesh as fast as the food laid it on. Here he must provide shelter Now 
one of the controversies of cattle-feeding in winter is, which is the best 
mode ot providing this. The Scotch farmer loudly contends for full 
and perfect liberty to the animal. If lie is too warm he will sweat, and 
if too closely confined he will fret and murmur; and lie declares that 
practice has decided that they should be fatted in open places; a shel- 
tered shed they may have, but nothing beyond it. The midland counties 
man says this exposure is dreadful. It wastes their beef, and renders 
them subject to disease, and involves long feeding. Another class again 
insist on the tying up of the animals as injurious to their health ; that 
a little exercise, but absolute confinement, are equally necessary ; and 
that they should have shelter with freedom— these two classes are con- 
troverting the merits of box and stall-feeding. 
wiML 1 , b “ th ° f , the, ‘ 1 »ght. Take a Highland Scot, consider his 
ild habits, his long stray of mountain and glen, his wide-spread pasture 
