———— = 
736 
that in Devon, in Sussex, in Wales, and in Scot- 
land, the cattle has been the same from time im- 
memorial; while, in all the eastern coast, and 
through every district of Britain, the breed of 
cattle degenerated, or at least lost its original 
character: it consisted of a variety of animals 
brought from every neighbouring and some re- 
mote districts, mingled in every possible variety, 
yet generally conforming itself to the soil and 
climate. The slightest observation will convince 
us that the cattle in Devonshire, Sussex, Wales, 
and Scotland are essentially the same. They are 
middle-horned ; tolerable but not extraordinary 
milkers, and remarkable for the quality rather 
than the quantity of their milk; active at work ; 
and with an unequalled aptitude to fatten. They 
have all the characters of the same breed, changed 
by soil and climate and time; yet little changed 
by the intermeddling of man. We may almost 
trace the colour, namely, the red of the Devon, 
the Sussex, and the Hereford; and even where 
the black alone are now found, the memory of 
the red prevails; it has a kind of superstitious 
reverence attached to it in the legends of the 
country; and in almost every part of Scotland, 
| and in some of the mountains of Wales, the milk 
| of the red cow is considered to be a remedy for 
| every disease, and a preservative from every evil. 
Every one who has had opportunities of compar- 
ing the Devon cattle with the wild breed of Cha- 
telherault Park or Chillingham Castle, has been 
struck with the great resemblance in many 
points, notwithstanding the difference of colour, 
while they bear no likeness at all to the cattle of 
the neighbouring country. For these reasons, 
we consider the middle-horns to be the native 
breed of Great Britain.” 
The Characteristics of Cattle—The points which 
| distinguish, or the properties which constitute, 
the best varieties of cattle, are, to some extent, 
matters of dispute, yet form an important sub- 
ject of study to every judicious farmer, and ought, 
with as much exactitude as possible, to be deter- 
mined and understood. Some secondary points 
affect appearance and beauty, and are matters of | 
mere taste; other secondary points affect adap- 
tation to particular climates or methods of feed- 
ing, or to the purposes of respectively the sham- 
bles and the dairy, and, in some instances, can 
be determined only by patient investigation and 
trial; and all the primary points affect constitu- 
tion, healthipess, economy, and productiveness, 
and occur in all possible varieties of good cattle, 
and may be regarded as the mere indications of 
established natural laws, so that they ought to 
be distinctly known, not only in full-grown and 
| fattened cattle, but in young and lean beasts, by 
every man who buys, keeps, or sells live-stock. 
Were a mere general observer to look upon a fat 
ox of prime character, he might admire its fine 
outline, the tint of its colours, the plumpness of 
its body, the smoothness and glossiness of its 
| skin, the gentle expression of its countenance, 
belongs. 
CATTLE. 
and the soft and cushiony yielding of its flesh to 
the pressure of the hand; but he could form no 
idea of the constitutional character whence these 
properties have evolved; he would wonder to be 
told that a judge can know, from its mere aspect, 
whether the ox be in good or in bad health,—from 
its colour, whether it be of a mixed or of an unmix- 
ed breed,—from its expression, whether it be a 
quiet feeder,—and from the nature of its flesh, whe- 
ther or not it have arrived at maturity; and he 
probably might have difficulty in believing that, by 
the mere touch or handling of the animal, a judge 
can readily ascertain the quality of its flesh, and 
estimate the degree of ease and rapidity with 
which it fattened, and foretell the probable quan- 
tity of fat which will be found in the interior of | 
the carcase. Were a general observer also to 
look upon a lean ox of precisely the same breed 
as the fat one, he might think its outline an- 
gular and coarse, and pronounce its body to 
be a rugged skeleton covered with a tough skin 
and disagreeable hair; while a judge can discern 
the points of the lean ox as readily as those of 
the fat one, and can anticipate, in accordance 
with them, the condition which the animal, if 
properly treated, will attain.—In the article on 
BREEDING, we glanced at the characteristics of a | 
beau ideal ox, as an index of a breeder’s aims; | 
and now we must glance at the characteristics of 
good existing oxen, as an index of a stock-farmer’s | 
rules of selection from among the classified breeds | 
of Britain. 
One subject of consideration is purity of breed. | 
This point is of small importance on its own 
account; yet it possesses much practical value as 
an index of known tendency to fatten; for when 
an ox is ascertained to be of unmixed descent, he 
must be regarded as possessing exactly the aver- 
age fattening tendency of the breed to which he 
The colours of a pure breed, particu- 
larly around the eyes and on the bald skin of the 
nose, whatever the special colours may be, are 
always definite and without spots; and the horns 
in some pure breeds are wholly white, in others 
tipped with black, and, in all the long-horned 
and all the short-horned, smooth, small, tapering, 
and sharp-pointed. In the short-horns, for ex- 
ample, the colour of the body is either entirely 
white or entirely red, or predominatingly white 
or predominatingly red, and the tint around the 
eyes and on the bald skin of the nose is always 
a rich cream colour; and in the Ayrshire breed, 
the colour of the body is a mixture of unblended 
and variously sized spots of white and red, and 
the tint around the eyes and on the bald skin of 
the nose is generally black or cream colour. 
The outline of a prime fat ox, of whatever 
breed, approaches a parallelogram. The back, 
from the top of the shoulder to the tail, is straight ; 
the tail falls perpendicularly froin the line of the 
back; the buttocks and twist are well filled out ; 
the brisket projects to a line dropped from the 
middle of the neck; the belly is longitudinally 
