575 
ON COW-SPAYING. 
By Andrew Calley, Kirkton-by-Burntisland. 
Gentlemen, —As you did me the honour, two years ago, 
to publish in your widely circulated Journal the history 
which I transmitted to you of a mare destroyed from diffi¬ 
cult foaling,” and also the subsequent statements I was 
called upon to make in self-defence, none of which, notwith¬ 
standing the attempts made to mystify the subject, have ever 
been refuted, I therefore entertain the hope that you may 
not consider the following observations on cow-spaying as 
unworthy of a place in your columns. 
My narrative is derived from the most authentic sources of 
information, and drawn up with a scrupulous adherence to 
facts, and to facts only. In sending you this communication 
I have been influenced by no other feeling but one of sincere 
and honest regard for the veterinary profession, in which 
corps, I know, that in my humble capacity as a farrier, I am 
nothing more than a working pioneer; but I am, and have 
ever been, desirous of improving myself in all that relates to 
the exercise of my daily duties and of obtaining the best 
advice. I am under great obligations to veterinary surgeons 
for what I have learned from them regarding those affections 
and diseases in the horse which come within the ordinary 
range of my practice, and I believe you, who are editors of 
the leading veterinary periodical in this country, and pro¬ 
fessors in the London Veterinary College, will not consider 
the subject of cow-spaying beneath your scientific research, 
but will give the profession and the public the benefit of your 
experience and knowledge by an editorial article, showing 
the real nature and consequences of experimenting on the 
bovine race, by destroying, in the female portion of it, the 
principal organ of reproduction by means of knives introduced 
through the vagina into the generative organs, for the purpose 
of breaking down and removing the ovaries. I am well 
aware all I can say is but as a drop in the bucket on so wide 
and important a subject, but your remarks will serve as 
directing lights to guide hundreds such as I am, and who 
are anxious to obtain established rules of practice. 
At page 262 of a small treatise on 4 Dairy Stock, its 
Selection, Diseases, and Produce/ published this year by 
Professor Gamgee, Edinburgh, he states, with reference to 
the immense loss sustained by the present system of dairy 
management in towns, that “ the spaying of cows is un- 
