FARMERS’ COLUMN.

Dunstan Times, Issue 905, 22 August 1879, Page 3

FARMERS’ COLUMN.

A PERFECT AXIMAT,. A perfect breeding or feeding animal should have a tine expression of countenance. It should be mild, serene, and expressive. The animal should be fine in the bone, with clean muzzle, a tail like a rat’s and not ewe-necked, short in the leg. He should have a small, well-put-on head, prominent eye, a skin not too thick nor too thin ; should be covered with a fine silky hair—to tiie touch like a lady’s glove I should have a good holly, to hold his meat, should be straight-backed, well ribbed up, and well-ribbed home, his hock bones should not be too wide apart. A wide hocked animal, especially a cow after calving, always has a vacancy between the hook bone and tail, and a want of the most valuable part of the carcass- I detest to see hooks too wide apart; tlmy should correspond with the other proportions’of the body. A level line should run from the hock to (he tail. He should bo well set in at tbe tail, free of patchiness there and all over, with deep thighs, that the butcher may get his second round and prominent brisket deep in the fore-rib ; well , fleshed in the fore-breasts, with equal covering of fine flesh all ovei bis carcass so valuable to the butcher. His outline ought to be such that if a tape is stretched from the fore shoulder to the thigh, and from the shoulder along the back to the extremity there, the lino should lie, close, with no vacancies ; and without a void, the line should fill from the hook to the tail. From the shoulder-blade to the bead should lie well-filled up —as we say, good in the neck vein. Thick legs, thick tails, sunken eyes, and deep necks, with thick skin and brisky hair, always point to s’uggish feeders. In cold weather in the month of May the obi silky coat of the straw-yard bullock is of great advantage. If we could get the qualities and proportions I have specified in animals, it would not be difficult only to make then fat. it would be difficult only to make them clean when once in good condition. A high standing,, want of ribbing-up, and ribbing home, with tuoked-up Hank, always denote a worth-less feeder- You must all have observed how difficult it is to bring such cattle into a state for killing. It will taken great deal of cake and corn to make them ripe. A great many can never be made more than fresh ; it is only a waste of time and money to keep them on. M‘Combie’s Cattle and Cattle-Breeders.

[National l.ivc-Stook Journal.] Unquestionably the most profitable course tor the general farmer to adopt in improving the rpiality of tire live stock, is to begin by the purchase of the first class thoroughbred males. The calves got by a thoroughbred bull of any of the well-estab-lished breeds, out of mixed average lot of cows, will almost invariably possess much of the excellence of the thoroughbred sire, and tlre females of those half-bloods again, bred to a thoroughbred sire, will produce animals, for all practical purposes except that of procreation, quite eqiul to the average thoroughbred. The same is true of sheep, swine, poultry, and in fact of all kinds of farm stock. Uy procuring thoroughhrod males of the purest lineage, and and of groat in lividual merit, and carefully selecting tho Ixist of the female produce for breeders, using thoroughbred males only, for three or four generations, the farmer may engraft effectually all the excellence of the thoroughbred stock upon Ids flock and herds.

But for this grading up common stock it, is of the utmost importance that the male ho a thoroughbred in the strictest sense. A mongrel or a grade will do better anywhere else than in this place. The purer bred the sire, the more valuable, as a rule, will he he for this purpose. A grade may occasionally bo found that is an impressive sire, but such cases are rare, and exceptional results are never prece louts upon which to base a practice in any sort of business. Thoroughrcda of all leading breeds of live stock are now so plentiful and so cheap, that there is no longer any excuse for general farmers continuing the use of any other. In fact, in these times of low prices and active competition, the man who has the best stock, and who practises the most euconomical methods of feeding, is the man who will make the money, while all others will find the balance on the wrong side of the ledger. And while on this subject it may not he out of place to direct attention to the fact that good care and liberal feeding is quite a figure in the economy of stock raising. The very best breed will not show any marked superiority over native stock if left entirely to shift for itself in the hands of tho average farmer, hut the improved breeds do furnish the means by which more pounds of beef, or milk, or butter, or wool, or mutton, or pork, or lard, and of a

better quality, can be produced from a given quantity of food, than from an unimproved atouk. Even common stock will yield much more profit to the farmer from liberal feeding and good care than if kept in a half-starved, half-frozen condition, but with the improved breeds the difference is much more apparent.