Read Ebook: Cattle and Their Diseases Embracing Their History and Breeds Crossing and Breeding and Feeding and Management; with the Diseases to Which They Are Subject and the Remedies Best Adapted to Their Cure by Jennings Robert

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The milking-pail is of various forms and of various materials. The Dutch use brass ones, which are brilliantly scoured every time they are in use. Tin pitchers are used in some places, while pails of wood in cooper-work are employed in others. A pail of oak, having thin staves bound together by bright iron hoops, with a handle formed by a stave projecting upward, is convenient for the purpose, and may be kept clean and sweet. One nine inches in diameter at the bottom, eleven inches at the top, and ten inches deep, with an upright handle or leg of five inches, has a capacious enough mouth to receive the milk as it descends; and a sufficient height, when standing on the edge of its bottom on the ground, to allow the dairymaid to grasp it firmly with her knees while sitting on a small three-legged stool. Of course, such a pail cannot be milked full; but it should be large enough to contain all the milk which a single cow can give at a milking; because it is undesirable to rise from a cow before the milking is finished, or to exchange one dish for another while the milking is in progress.

Cows are easily rendered troublesome on being milked; and the kicks and knocks which they usually receive for their restlessness, only render them more fretful. If they cannot be overcome by kindness, thumps will never make them better. The truth is, restless habits are continued in them by the treatment which they receive at first, when, most probably, they have been dragooned into submission. Their teats are tender at first; but an unfeeling, horny hand tugs at them at stripping, as if the animal had been accustomed to the operation for years. Can the creature be otherwise than uneasy? And how can she escape the wincing but by flinging out her heels?--Then hopples are placed on the hind fetlocks, to keep her heels down. The tail must then be held by some one, while the milking is going on; or the hair of its tuft be converted into a double cord, to tie the tail to the animal's leg. Add to this the many threats and scoldings uttered by the milker, and one gets a not very exaggerated impression of the "breaking-in."

Some cows, no doubt, are very unaccomodating and provoking; but, nevertheless, nothing but a rational course toward them, administered with gentleness, will ever render them less so. There are cows which are troublesome to milk for a few times after calving, that become quite quiet for the remainder of the season; others will kick pertinaciously at the first milking. In this last case the safest plan--instead of hoppling, which only irritates--is for the dairymaid to thrust her head against the flank of the cow, and while standing on her feet, stretch her hands forward, get hold of the teats the best way she can, and send the milk on the ground; and in this position it is out of the power of the cow to hurt her. These ebullitions of feeling at the first milking after calving, arise either from feeling pain in a tender state of the teat, most probably from inflammation in the lining membrane of the receptacle; or they may arise from titillation of the skin of the udder and teat, which becomes the more sensible to the affection from a heat which is wearing off.

At the age of two or three years the milking glands have not become fully developed, and their largest development will depend very greatly upon the management after the first calf. Cows should have, therefore, the most milk-producing food; be treated with constant gentleness; never struck, or spoken harshly to, but coaxed and caressed; and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, they will grow up gentle and quiet. The hundredth had better be fatted and sent to the butcher. Harshness is worse than useless. Be the cause of irritation what it may, one thing is certain, that gentle discipline will overcome the most turbulent temper. Nothing does so much to dry a cow up, especially a young cow, as the senseless treatment to which she is too often subjected.

The longer the young cow, with her first and second calf, is made to hold out, the more surely will this habit be fixed upon her. Stop milking her four months before the next calf, and it will be difficult to make her hold out to within four or six weeks of the time of calving afterward. Induce her, if possible, by moist and succulent food, and by careful milking, to hold out even up to the time of calving, if you desire to milk her so long, and this habit will be likely to be fixed upon her for life. But do not expect to obtain the full yield of a cow the first year after calving. Some of the very best cows are slow to develop their best qualities; and no cow reaches her prime till the age of five or six years.

The extreme importance of care and attention to these points cannot be overestimated. The wild cows grazing on the plains of South America, are said to give not more than three or four quarts a day at the height of the flow; and many an owner of large herds in Texas, it is said, has too little milk for family use, and sometimes receives his supply of butter from the New York market. There is, therefore, a constant tendency in milch cows to dry up; and it must be guarded against with special care, till the habit of yielding a large quantity, and yielding it long, becomes fixed in the young animal, when, with proper care, it may easily be kept up.

Cows, independently of their power to retain their milk in the udder, afford different degrees of pleasure in milking them, even in the quietest mood. Some yield their milk in a copious flow, with the gentlest handling that can be given them; others require great exertion to draw the milk from them even in streams no larger than a thread. The udder of the former will be found to have a soft skin and short teats; that of the latter will have a thick skin, with long rough teats. The one feels like velvet; the other is no more pleasant to the touch than untanned leather. To induce quiet and persuade the animal to give down her milk freely, it is better that she should be fed at milking-time with cut feed, or roots, placed within her easy reach.

If gentle and mild treatment is observed and persevered in, the operation of milking, as a general thing, appears to be a pleasure to the animal, as it undoubtedly is; but, if an opposite course is pursued--if at every restless movement, caused, perhaps, by pressing a sore teat, the animal is harshly spoken to--she will be likely to learn to kick as a habit, and it will be difficult to overcome it ever afterward.

Whatever may be the practice on other occasions, there can be no doubt that, for some weeks after calving, and in the height of the flow, cows ought, if possible, to be milked regularly three times a day--at early morning, noon, and night. Every practical dairyman knows that cows thus milked give a larger quantity of milk than if milked only twice, though it may not be quite so rich; and in young cows, no doubt, it has a tendency to promote the development of the udder and milk-veins. A frequent milking stimulates an increased secretion, therefore, and ought never to be neglected in the milk-dairy, either in the case of young cows, or very large milkers, at the height of the flow, which will commonly be for two or three months after calving.

There being a great difference in the quality as well as in the quantity of the milk of different cows, no dairyman should neglect to test the milk of each new addition to his dairy stock, whether it be an animal of his own raising or one brought from abroad. A lactometer--or instrument for testing the comparative richness of different species of milk--is very convenient for this purpose; but any one can set the milk of each cow separately at first, and give it a thorough trial, when the difference will be found to be great. Economy will dictate that the cows least to the purpose should be disposed of, and their places supplied with better ones.

THE RAISING OF CALVES.

It has been found in practice that calves properly bred and raised on the farm have a far greater intrinsic value for that farm, other things being equal, than any that can be procured elsewhere; while on the manner in which they are raised will depend much of their future usefulness and profit. These considerations should have their proper weight in deciding whether a promising calf from a good cow and bull shall be kept, or sold to the butcher. But, rather than raise a calf at hap-hazard, and simply because its dam was celebrated as a milker, the judicious farmer will prefer to judge of the peculiar characteristics of the animal itself. This will often save the great and useless outlay which has sometimes been incurred in raising calves for dairy purposes, which a more careful examination would have rejected as unpromising.

The method of judging stock which has been recommended in the previous pages is of practical utility here, and it is safer to rely upon it to some extent, particularly when other appearances concur, than to go on blindly. The milk-mirror on the calf is, indeed, small, but no smaller in proportion to its size than that of the cow; while its shape and form can generally be distinctly seen, particularly at the end of ten or twelve weeks. The development of the udder, and other peculiarities, will give some indication of the future capacities of the animal, and these should be carefully studied. If we except the manure of young stock, the calf is the first product of the cow, and as such demands our attention, whether it is to be raised or hurried off to the shambles. The practice adopted in raising calves differs widely in different sections of the country, being governed very much by local circumstances, as the vicinity of a milk-market, the value of milk for the dairy, the object of breeding, whether mainly for beef, for work, or for the dairy, etc.; but, in general, it may be said, that, within the range of thirty or forty miles of good veal-markets, which large towns furnish, comparatively few are raised at all. Most of them are fattened and sold at ages varying from three to eight or ten weeks; and in milk-dairies still nearer large towns and cities they are often hurried off at one or two days, or, at most, a week old. In both of these cases, as long as the calf is kept it is generally allowed to suck the cow, and, as the treatment is very simple, there is nothing which particularly calls for remark, unless it be to condemn the practice entirely, upon the ground that there is a more profitable way of fattening calves for the butcher, and to say that allowing the calf to suck the cow at all is objectionable on the score of economy, except in cases where it is rendered necessary by the hard and swollen condition of the udder.

If the calf is so soon to be taken away, it is better that the cow should not be suffered to become attached to it at all: since she is inclined to withhold her milk when it is removed, and thus a loss is sustained. The farmer will be governed by the question of profit, whatever course it is decided to adopt. In raising blood-stock, however, or in raising beef cattle, without any regard to economy of milk, the system of suckling the calves, or letting them run with the cow, may and will be adopted, since it is usually attended with somewhat less labor.

The other course, which is regarded as the best where the calf is to be raised for the dairy, is to bring it up by hand. This is almost universally done in all countries where the raising of dairy cows is best understood--in Switzerland, Holland, some parts of Germany, and England. It requires rather more care, on the whole; but it is decidedly preferable, since the calves cost less, as the food can be easily modified, and the growth is not checked, as is usually the case when the calf is taken off from the cow. Allusion is here made, of course, to sections where the milk of the cow is of some account for the dairy, and where it is too valuable to be devoted entirely to nourishing the calf. In this case, as soon as the calf is dropped the cow is allowed to lick off the slimy moisture till it is dry, which she will generally do from instinct, or, if not, a slight sprinkling of salt over the body of the calf will immediately tempt her. The calf is left to suck once or twice, which it will do as soon as it is able to stand. It should, in all cases, be permitted to have the first milk which comes from the cow, which is of a turbid, yellowish color, unfit for any of the purposes of the dairy, but somewhat purgative and medicinal, and admirably and wisely designed by Nature to free the bowels and intestines of the new-born animal from the mucous, excrementitious matter always existing in it after birth. Too much of this new milk may, however, be hurtful even to the new-born calf, while it should never be given at all to older calves. The best course would seem to be--and such is in accordance with the experience of the most successful stock-raisers--to milk the cow dry immediately after the calf has sucked once, especially if the udder is painfully distended, which is often the case, and to leave the calf with the cow during one day, and after that to feed it by putting the fingers into its mouth, and gently bringing its muzzle down to the milk in a pail or trough when it will imbibe in sucking the fingers. No great difficulty will be experienced in teaching the calf to drink when taken so young, though some take to it much more readily than others. What the calf does not need should be given to the cow. Some, however, prefer to milk immediately after calving; and, if the udder is overloaded, this may be the best course, though the better practice appears to be, to leave the cow as quietly to herself as possible for a few hours. The less she is disturbed, as a general thing, the better. The after-birth should be taken from her immediately after it is dropped. It is customary to give the cow, as soon as convenient after calving, some warm and stimulating drink--a little meal stirred into warm water, with a part of the first milk which comes from her, seasoned with a little salt.

In many cases the calf is taken from the cow immediately; and before she has seen it, to a warm, dry pen out of her sight, and there rubbed till it is thoroughly dry; and then, when able to stand, fed with the new milk from the cow, which it should have three or four times a day, regularly, for the first fortnight, whatever course it is proposed to adopt afterwards. It is of the greatest importance to give the young calf a thrifty start. The milk, unless coming directly from the cow, should be warmed.

Some object to removing the calf from the cow in this way, on the ground of its apparent cruelty. But the objection to letting the calf suck the cow for several days, as they do, or indeed of leaving it with the cow for any length of time, is, that she invariably becomes attached to it, and frets and withholds her milk when it is at last taken from her. She probably suffers much more, after this attachment is once formed, at the removal of the object of it, than she does at its being taken at first out of her sight. The cow's memory is far more retentive than many suppose; and the loss and injury sustained by removing the calf after it has been allowed to suck her for a longer or shorter period are never known exactly, because it is not usually known how much milk the calf takes; but it is, without doubt, very considerable. If the udder is all right, there seems to be no good reason for leaving the calf with the cow for two or three days, if it is then to be taken away.

The practice in Holland is to remove the calf from its mother even before it has been licked, and to take it into a corner of the barn, or into another building, out of the cow's sight and hearing, put it on soft, dry straw, and rub it dry with some hay or straw, when its tongue and gums are slightly rubbed with salt, and the mucus and saliva removed from the nostrils and lips. After this has been done, the calf is made to drink the milk first taken as it comes from the mother. It is slightly diluted with water, if taken last from the udder; but, if the first of the milking, it is given just as it is. The calf is taught to drink in the same manner as in this country, by putting the fingers in its mouth, and bringing it down to the milk, and it soon gets so as to drink unaided. It is fed, at first, from four to six times a day, or even oftener; but soon only three times, at regular intervals. Its food for two or three weeks is clear milk, as it comes warm and fresh from the cow. This is never omitted, as the milk during most of that time possesses certain qualities which are necessary to the calf, and which cannot be effectually supplied by any other food. In the third or fourth week the milk is skimmed, but warmed to the degree of fresh milk; though, as the calf grows a little older, the milk is given cold, while less care is taken to give it the milk of its own mother, that of other cows now answering equally well. In some places, calves are fed on buttermilk at the age of two weeks and after; but the change from new milk, fresh from the cow, is made gradually, some sweet skimmed milk and warm water being first added to it.

At three weeks old, or thereabouts, the calf will begin to eat a little sweet, fine hay, and potatoes cut fine, and it very soon becomes accustomed to this food. Many now begin to give linseed-meal mixed into hot water, to which is added some skim-milk or buttermilk; and others use a little bran cooked in hay-tea, made by chopping the hay fine and pouring on boiling-hot water, which is allowed to stand awhile on it. An egg is frequently broken into such a mixture. Others still take pains at this age to have fresh linseed-cake, broken into pieces of the size of a pigeon's egg; putting one of these into the mouth after the meal of milk has been finished, and when it is eager to suck at any thing in its way. It will very soon learn to eat linseed-meal. A little sweet clover is put in its way at the age of about three weeks, and it will soon begin to eat that also.

In this manner the feeding is continued from the fourth to the seventh week, the quantity of solid food being gradually increased. In the sixth or seventh week the milk is by degrees withheld, and water or buttermilk used instead; and soon after this, green food may be safely given, increasing it gradually with the hay to the age of ten or twelve weeks, when it will do to put them upon grass alone, if the season is favorable. A lot as near the house as possible, where they can be easily looked after and frequently visited, is the best. Calves should be gradually accustomed to all changes; and even after having been turned out to pasture, they ought to be put under shelter if the weather is not dry and warm. The want of care and attention relative to these little details will be apparent sooner or later; while, if the farmer gives his personal attention to these matters, he will be fully paid in the rapid growth of his calves. It is especially necessary to see that the troughs from which they are fed, if troughs are used, are kept clean and sweet.

But there are some--even among intelligent farmers--who make a practice of turning their calves out to pasture at the tender age of two or three weeks--and that, too, when they have sucked the cow up to that time--and allow them nothing in the shape of milk and tender care. This, certainly, is the poorest possible economy, to say nothing of the manifest cruelty of such treatment. The growth of the calf is checked, and the system receives a shock from so sudden a change, from which it cannot soon recover. The careful Dutch breeders bring the calves either skimmed milk or buttermilk to drink several times a day after they are turned to grass, which is not till the age of ten or twelve weeks; and, if the weather is chilly, the milk is warmed for them. They put a trough generally under a covering, to which the calves may come and drink at regular times. Thus, they are kept tame and docile.

In the raising of calves, through all stages of their growth, great care should be taken neither to starve nor to over-feed. A calf should never be surfeited, and never be fed so highly that it cannot be fed more highly as it advances. The most important part is to keep it growing thriftily without getting too fat, if it is to be raised for the dairy.

The calves in the dairy districts of Scotland are fed on the milk, with seldom any admixture; and they are not permitted to suck their dams, but are taught to drink milk by the hand from a dish. They are generally fed on milk only for the first four, five, or six weeks, and are then allowed from two to two and a half quarts of new milk each meal, twice in the twenty-four hours. Some never give them any other food when young except milk, lessening the quantity when the calf begins to eat grass or other food, which it generally does when about five weeks old, if grass can be had; and withdrawing it entirely about the seventh or eighth week of the calf's age. But, if the calf is reared in winter, or early in spring, before the grass rises, it must be supplied with at least some milk until it is eight or nine weeks old, as a calf will not so soon learn to eat hay or straw, nor fare so well on them alone as it will on pasture. Some feed their calves reared for stock partly with meal mixed in the milk after the third or fourth week. Others introduce gradually some new whey into the milk, first mixed with meal; and, when the calf gets older, they withdraw the milk, and feed it on whey and porridge. Hay-tea, juices of peas and beans, or pea or bean-straw, linseed beaten into powder, treacle, etc., have all been sometimes used to advantage in feeding calves; but milk, when it can be spared, is, in the judgment of the Scotch breeders, by far their most natural food.

In Galloway, and other pastoral districts, where the calves are allowed to suck, the people are so much wedded to their own customs as to argue that suckling is much more nutritious to the calves than any other mode of feeding. That it induces a greater secretion of saliva, which, by promoting digestion, accelerates the growth and fattening of the young animal, cannot be doubted; but the secretion of that fluid may likewise be promoted by placing an artificial teat in the mouth of the calf, and giving it the milk slowly, and at the natural temperature. In the dairy districts of Scotland, the dairymaid puts one of her fingers into the mouth of the calf when it is fed, which serves the purpose of a teat, and will have nearly the same effect as the natural teat in inducing the secretion of saliva. If that, or an artificial teat of leather, be used, and the milk be given slowly before it is cold, the secretion of saliva may be promoted to all the extent that can be necessary; besides, secretion is not confined to the mere period of eating, but, as in the human body, the saliva is formed and part of it swallowed at all times. As part of the saliva is sometimes seen dropping from the mouths of the calves, it might be advisable not only to give them an artificial teat when fed, but to place, as is frequently done, a lump of chalk before them to lick, thus leading them to swallow the saliva. The chalk would so far supply the want of salt, of which cattle are often so improperly deprived, and it would also promote the formation of saliva. Indeed, calves are very much disposed to lick and suck every thing which comes within their reach, which seems to be the way in which Nature teaches them to supply their stomachs with saliva.

But though sucking their dams may be most advantageous in that respect, yet it has also some disadvantages. The cow is always more injured than the calf is benefited by that mode of feeding. She becomes so fond of the calf that she does not, for a long time after, yield her milk freely to the dairyman. The calf does not when young draw off the milk completely, and when it is taken off by the hand, the cow withholds a part of her milk, and, whenever a cow's udder is not completely emptied every time she is milked, the lactic secretion--as before stated--is thereby diminished.

Feeding of calves by hand is also, in various respects, advantageous. Instead of depending on the uncertain, or perhaps precarious supply of the dam, which may be more at first than the young animal can consume or digest, and at other times too little for its supply, its food can, by hand-feeding, be regulated to suit the age, appetite, and the purposes for which the calf is intended; other admixtures or substitutes can be introduced into the milk, and the quantity gradually increased or withdrawn at pleasure. This is highly necessary when the calves are reared for stock. The milk is in that case diminished, and other food introduced so gradually that the stomach of the young animal is not injured as it is when the food is too suddenly changed. And, in the case of feeding calves for the butcher, the quantity of milk is not limited to that of the dam--for no cow will allow a stranger-calf to suck her--but it can be increased, or the richest or poorest parts of the milk given at pleasure.

Such are, substantially, the views upon this subject which are entertained by the most judicious farmers in the first dairy districts of Scotland.

In those districts--where, probably, the feeding and management of calves are as well and as judiciously conducted as in any other part of Great Britain--the farmers' wives and daughters, or the female domestics, have the principal charge of young calves; and they are, doubtless, much better calculated for this duty than men, since they are more inclined to be gentle and patient. The utmost gentleness--as has been already remarked, in another connection--should always be observed in the treatment of all stock; but especially of milch cows, and calves designed for the dairy. Persevering kindness and patience, will, almost invariably, overcome the most obstinate natures; while rough and ungentle handling will be repaid in a quiet kind of way, perhaps, by withholding the milk, which will always have a tendency to dry up the cow; or, what is nearly as bad, by kicking and other modes of revenge, which often contribute to the personal discomfort of the milker. The disposition of the cow is greatly modified, if not, indeed, wholly formed, by her treatment while young; and therefore it is best to handle calves as much as possible, and make pets of them, lead them with a halter, and caress them in various ways. Calves managed in this way will always be docile, and suffer themselves to be approached and handled, both in the pasture and in the barn.

This and other preparations are given, not because they are better than milk,--than which nothing is better adapted to fatten a calf, or promote its growth,--but simply to economize by providing the simplest and cheapest substitutes. Experience shows that the first two or three calves are smaller than those which follow; and hence, unless they are pure-bred, and to be kept for the blood, they are not generally thought to be so desirable to raise for the dairy as the third or fourth, and those that come after, up to the age of nine or ten years. Opinions upon this point, however, differ.

According to the comparative experiments of a German agriculturist, cows which as calves had been allowed to suck their dams from two to four weeks, brought calves which weighed only from thirty-five to forty-eight pounds; while others, which as calves had been allowed to suck from five to eight weeks, brought calves which weighed from sixty to eighty pounds. It is difficult to see how there can be so great a difference, if, indeed, there be any; but it may be worthy of careful observation and experiment, and as such it is stated here. The increased size of the calf would be due to the increased size to which the cow would attain; and if as a calf she were allowed to run in the pasture with her dam for four or five months, taking all the milk she wanted, she would doubtless be kept growing on in a thriving condition. But taking a calf from the cow at four or even eight weeks must check its growth to some extent; and this may be avoided by feeding liberally, and bringing up by hand.

After the calf is fully weaned, there is nothing very peculiar in the general management. A young animal will require for the first few months--say up to the age of six months--an average of five or six pounds daily of good hay, or its equivalent. At the age of six months, it will require from four and a half to five pounds; and at the end of the year, from three and a half or four pounds of good hay, or its equivalent, for every one hundred pounds of its live weight; or, in other words, about three and a half or four per cent. of its live weight. At two years old, it will require three and a half, and some months later, three per cent. of its live weight daily in good hay, or its equivalent. Indian-corn fodder, either green or cured, forms an excellent and wholesome food at this age.

The heifer should not be pampered, nor yet poorly fed or half starved, so as to receive a check in her growth. An abundant supply of good healthy dairy food and milk will do all that is necessary up to the time of her having her first calf--which should not ordinarily be till the age of three years, though some choose to allow them to come in at two, or a little over, on the ground that it early stimulates the secretion of milk, and that this will increase the milking propensity through life. This is undoubtedly the case, as a general rule; but greater injury is at the same time done by checking the growth, unless the heifer has been fed up to large size and full development from the start--in which case she may perhaps take the bull at fifteen or eighteen months without injury. Even if a heifer comes in at two years, it is generally deemed desirable to let her run barren for the following year, which will promote her growth and more perfect development.

The feeding which young stock often get is not such as is calculated to make good-sized or valuable cattle of them. They are often fed on the poorest of hay or straw through the winter, not infrequently left exposed to cold, unprotected and unhoused, and thus stinted in their growth. This is, surely, the very worst economy, or rather it is no economy at all. Properly viewed, it is an extravagant wastefulness which no farmer can afford. No animal develops its good points under such treatment; and if the starving system is to be followed at all, it had better be after the age of two or three years, when the animal's constitution has attained the strength and vigor which may, possibly, enable it to resist ill treatment.

To raise up first-rate milkers, it is absolutely necessary to feed on dairy food even when they are young. No matter how fine the breed is, if the calf is raised on poor, short feed, it will never be so good a milker as if raised on better keeping; and hence, in dairy districts, where calves are raised at all, they ought to be allowed the best pasture during the summer, and good, sweet and wholesome food during the winter.

POINTS OF FAT CATTLE.

Whatever theoretical objections may be raised against over-fed cattle, and great as may be the attempts to disparage the mountains of fat,--as highly-fed cattle are sometimes designated,--there is no doubt of the practical fact, that the best butcher cannot sell any thing but the best fatted beef; and of whatever age, size, or shape a half-fatted ox may be, he is never selected by judges as fit for human food. Hence, a well-fatted animal always commands a better price per pound than one imperfectly fed, and the parts selected as the primest beef are precisely the parts which contain the largest deposits of fat. The rump, the crop, and the sirloin, the very favorite cuts,--which always command from twenty to twenty-five per cent. more than any other part of the ox,--are just those parts on which the largest quantities of fat are found; so that, instead of the taste and fashion of the age being against the excessive fattening of animals, the fact is, practically, exactly the reverse. Where there is the most fat, there is the best lean; where there is the greatest amount of muscle, without its share of fat, that part is accounted inferior, and is used for a different purpose; in fact, so far from fat's being a disease, it is a condition of muscle, necessary to its utility as food,--a source of luxury to the rich, and of comfort to the poor, furnishing a nourishing and healthy diet for their families.

Now, there are several qualities which are essentially characteristic of a disposition to fatten. There have not, as yet, been any book-rules laid down, as in the case of M. Gu?non's indications of milking-cows; but there are, nevertheless, marks so definite and well understood, that they are comprehended and acted upon by every grazier, although they are by no means easy to describe. It is by skillful acumen that the grazier acquires his knowledge, and not by theoretical rules; observation, judgment, and experience, powerful perceptive faculties, and a keen and minute comparison and discrimination, are essential to his success.

There are other points, also, of much importance; the head must be small and fine; its special use is indicative of the quick fattening of the animal so constructed, and it is also indicative of the bones being small and the legs short. For constitutional powers, the beast should have his ribs extended well towards the thigh-bones or hips, so as to leave as little unprotected space as possible. There must be no angular, or abrupt points; all must be round, and broad, and parallel. Any depression in the lean animal will give a deficient deposit of flesh and fat at that point, when sold to the butcher, and thus deteriorate its value; and hence the animal must be round and full.

Now, these qualities are inherent in some breeds; there may be cases and instances in all the superior breeds, and in most there may be failures.

DRIVING AND SLAUGHTERING.

It is necessary that cattle which have been disposed of to the dealer or butcher, or which are intended to be driven to market, should undergo a preparation for the journey. If they were immediately put to the road to travel, from feeding on grass or turnips, when their bowels are full of undigested vegetable matter, a scouring might ensue which would render them unfit to pursue their journey; and this complaint is the more likely to be brought on from the strong propensity which cattle have to take violent exercise upon feeling themselves at liberty after a long confinement. They in fact, become light-headed whenever they leave the barn or enclosure, so much so that they actually "frisk and race and leap," and their antics would be highly amusing, were it not for the apprehension that they may hurt themselves against some opposing object, as they seem to regard nothing before them.

On being let out for the first time, cattle should be put for awhile into a larger court, or on a road well fenced with enclosures, and guarded by men, to romp about. Two or three such allowances of liberty will render them quiet; and, in the mean time, to lighten their weight of carcass, they should have hay for a large proportion of their food. These precautions are absolutely necessary for cattle which have been confined in barns; otherwise, accidents may befall them on the road, where they will at once break loose. Even at home serious accidents sometimes overtake them, such as the breaking down of a horn, casting off a hoof, spraining a tendon, bruising ribs, and heating the whole body violently; and, of course, when any such ill luck befalls, the animal affected must be left behind, and become a drawback upon the value of the rest, unless kept for some time longer.

Having the cattle prepared for travel, the drover takes the road very slowly for the first two days, not exceeding seven or eight miles a day. At night, in winter, they should be put into an open court, and supplied with hay, water, and a very few turnips; for, if roots are suddenly withdrawn from them,--since it is taken for granted that these have formed a staple portion of their food,--their bellies will become shrunken up into smaller dimensions--a state very much against favorable appearance in market. After the first two days they may proceed faster, say twelve or thirteen miles a day, if very fat; and fifteen, if moderately so. When the journey is long and the beasts get faint from travel, they should have corn to support them. In frosty weather, when the roads become very hard, they are apt to become shoulder-shaken, an effect of founder; and if sleet falls during the day, and becomes frozen upon them at night, they may become so chilled as to refuse food, and shrink rapidly away. Cattle should, if possible, arrive the day before in the neighborhood of a distant market, and be supplied with a good feed of roots and hay, or grass, to make them look fresh and fill them up again; but if the market is at but short distance, they can travel to it early in the morning.

In driving cattle the drover should have no dog, which will only annoy them. He should walk either before or behind, as he sees them disposed to proceed too fast or to loiter upon the road; and in passing carriages, the leading ox, after a little experience, will make way for the rest to follow. On putting oxen on a ferry-boat the shipping of the first one only is attended with much trouble. A man on each side should take hold of a horn, or of a halter made of any piece of rope, should the beast be hornless, and two other men, one on each side, should push him up behind with a piece of rope held between them as a breeching, and conduct him along the plank into the boat; if it have low gunwales, a man will be required to remain beside him until one or two more of the cattle follow their companion, which they will most readily do. From neglecting this precaution in small ferry-boats, the first beast sometimes leaps into the water, when it becomes a difficult task to prevent some of the rest doing the same thing.

Cattle are made to fast before being slaughtered. The time they should stand depends upon their state on their arrival at the shambles. If they have been driven a considerable distance in a proper manner, the bowels will be in a tolerably empty state, so that twelve hours may suffice; but if they are full and just off their food, twenty-four hours will be required. Beasts that have been overdriven, or much struck with sticks, or in any degree infuriated, should not be immediately slaughtered, but allowed to stand on dry food, such as hay, until the symptoms disappear. These precautions are absolutely necessary that the meat may be preserved in the best state.

The mode of slaughtering cattle varies in different countries. In the great slaughter-houses at Montmartre, in Paris, they are slaughtered by bisecting the spinal cord of the cervical vertebrae; and this is accomplished by the driving of a sharp-pointed chisel between the second and third vertebrae, with a smart stroke of a mallet, while the animal is standing, when it drops, and death or insensibility instantly ensues, and the blood is let out immediately by opening the blood-vessels of the neck. The plan adopted in England is, first to bring the ox down on his knees, and place his under-jaw upon the ground by means of ropes fastened to his head and passed through an iron ring in the floor of the slaughterhouse. He is then stunned with a few blows from an iron axe made for the purpose, on the forehead, the bone of which is usually driven into the brain. The animal then falls upon his side, and the blood is let out by the neck. Of the two modes, the French is apparently the less cruel, for some oxen require many blows to make them fall. Some butchers, however, allege that the separation of the spinal cord, by producing a general nervous convulsion throughout the body, prevents the blood from flowing as rapidly and entirely out of it as when the ox is stunned in the forehead. The skin is then taken off to the knees, when the legs are disjointed, and also off the head. The carcass is then hung up by the tendons of the hough on a stretcher, by a block and tackle, worked by a small winch, which retains in place what rope it winds up by means of a wheel and ratchet.

In cutting up a carcass of beef the London butcher displays great expertness; he not only discriminates between the qualities of its different parts, but can cut out any piece to gratify the taste of his customers. In this way he makes the best use of the carcass and realizes the largest value for it, while he gratifies the taste of every grade of customers. A figure of the Scotch and English modes of cutting up a carcass of beef will at once show the difference; and upon being informed where the valuable pieces lie, an opinion can be formed as to whether the oxen the farmer is breeding or feeding possess the properties which will enable him to demand the highest price for them.

These are all the pieces of the fore-quarter; and it will be seen that they consist chiefly of boiling-pieces, and some of them none of the finest--the roasting-piece being confined to the six ribs of the spare rib, and the finest boiling-piece, corned, only to be found in the nineholes.

The loin is the principal roasting-piece; the rump is the favorite steak-piece; the aitch-bone, the favorite stew; the buttock, the thick flank, and the thin flank are all excellent boiling-pieces when corned; the hock and the shin make soup and afford stock for the various requirements of the culinary art; and the tail furnishes ox-tail soup--a favorite English luncheon. These are all the pieces of the hind-quarter, and they are valuable of their respective kinds.

In the fore-quarter, the fore-rib, middle-rib, and chuckle-rib are all roasting-pieces, not alike good; but in removing the part of the shoulder-blade in the middle-rib, the spare-ribs below make a good broil or roast; the neck makes soup, being used fresh, boiled; the back end of the brisket is boiled, corned, or stewed; the leg-of-mutton piece is coarse, but is as frequently stewed as boiled; the shin is put to the same use as the shin and hock of the hind-quarter.

On comparing the two modes of cutting-up, it will be observed that in the English there are more roasting-pieces than in the Scotch, a large proportion of the fore-quarter being used in that way. The plan, too, of cutting the loin between the rump and aitch-bone in the hind-quarter, lays open the steak-pieces to better advantage than in the Scotch bullock. Extending the comparison from one part of the carcass to the other, in both methods, it will be seen that the most valuable pieces--the roasting--occupy its upper, and the less valuable--the boiling--its lower part. Every beast, therefore, that lays on beef more upon the upper part of its body is more valuable than one that lays the same quantity of flesh on its lower parts.

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