BOB VEAL AND THE PUBLIC. 
179 
Baby beef lias been defined as a prime butchers’ beast, thor¬ 
oughly fattened and ripe for the block at from 12 to 24 months 
of age. Growth has been artificially promoted by continuous 
heavy feeding from birth, with the object of obtaining in the 
shortest time possible the maximum amount of well-matured 
beef. With the cattle put on the market at two or three years of 
age, the greater part of the life is devoted to natural growth, but 
the last four or six months of life is devoted to fattening. With 
the baby beef the fattening process is begun at birth and car¬ 
ried on coincidently with growth. Under such conditions it is 
necessary that all the food that can be transformed into beef must 
be supplied. 
This reduction in the age of beef fit for slaughter, although 
not, perhaps, regulated by law, is referred to because there is 
also apparently a tendency to reduce the age at which veal may 
be put on the market. The Federal government formerly re¬ 
quired that a calf must be four weeks of age in order to be mar¬ 
ketable. This age has now been reduced to three weeks. The 
States of New Jersey and Pennsylvania have also adopted the 
three weeks age minimum. In other States the age ranges from 
four to six weeks. 
In Germany the marketable age of veal sanctioned by law 
varies with the locality. In the greater number of districts the 
j o 
minimum age limit is placed at from eight to fourteen days, in 
others four weeks, and still others only a few days. In England 
the calf for the market must not be slaughtered less than two 
weeks of age, although it is said that the usual age for food pur¬ 
poses is five weeks. 
'The usual method for determining a bob veal before the car¬ 
cass has been cut up is the unhealed condition of the umbilicus or 
navel ; the distance the teeth have protruded from the gums is 
sometimes an aid; the amount and character of the fat about the 
kidneys—renal fat; in very young animals the fat is not so great 
in amount and is perhaps of softer consistency, having quite 
often a glandular appearance and usually of a brownish instead 
of a white color. Size and weight may be of indirect assistance, 
