f the
cattle are kept on cake, corn, potatoes, or brewers' wash or grain,
during the previous winter, it will be ruin to the grazier. Let it not
be supposed, however, that I recommend buying lean, half-starved
beasts. What I wish to impress on you is, that you must keep the cattle
always full of flesh; and, as a breeder, you must be careful not to
lose the calf flesh. If you do so by starving the animal at any time of
his growth, you lose the cream--the covering of flesh so much prized by
all our best retail butchers. Where do all the scraggy, bad-fleshed
beasts come from that we see daily in our fat markets, and what is the
cause of their scragginess? It is because they have been stinted and
starved at some period of their growth. If the calf flesh is once lost,
it can never be regained. A great deal of tallow may be got internally
by high feeding, but the animal can never again be made one that will
be prized by the great retail butcher. Our Aberdeen working bullocks
carry little good meat. Draught as well as starvation takes off the
flesh. They are generally only fit for ship beef.

Let me now offer a few observations as to the breeds of cattle best
adapted for paying a rent--the great object of our cattle rearing and
feeding. I have grazed the pure Aberdeen and Angus, the Aberdeen and
North-country crosses, the Highland, the Galloways, and what is termed
in Angus the South-country cattle, the Dutch, and the Jutland. Except
the two latter, all the others have got a fair trial. I am aware that
the merits of the pure Aberdeen and Angus form a difficult and delicate
subject to deal with. I know that the breeders of Shorthorns will
scrutinise my statements carefully. But my only object is to lay down
my own experience, and I trust that I have divested myself of prejudice
as much as possible. If store cattle of the Aberdeen and Angus breed
out of our best herds can be secured, I believe _no other_ breed
of cattle will pay the grazier more money in the north for the same
value of keep. But there is a race of starved vermin which is known by
some in the north by the name of "Highland hummlies," which I consider
the worst of all breeds. No keep will move them much. At the top of
these I must place those with the brown ridge along the back. They can
be made older, but it takes more ability than I ever had to make them
much bigger. Keep is entirely thrown away upon such animals. As regards
good Aberdeen or North-country crosse