give them to a store bullock, though I would give them to my fatting
bullocks.[1] If I can get the bullocks for grazing that I want, I will
not lose one mouthful of grass upon them. They will not go on, however,
without proper care and superintendence. It requires a practised eye.
If a grazier has a number of fields and many cattle, to carry out the
treatment of his cattle properly, shifting and fresh grass once in ten
or fourteen days should, if possible, be adopted. This has always been
my practice. In one day I have observed a marked difference in the
improvement of animals after the shift.
[1] As to giving potatoes to store cattle, since writing the
above, I wish to modify the opinion I have expressed to a certain
extent. I had a conversation with Mr Hope on the subject, and he
states that his belief is, that potatoes are not prejudicial to
the growth of store cattle when put to grass, and that his
practice is to give them potatoes. I will admit that a few
potatoes may not do a store beast much harm; but in my experience
in Aberdeenshire I have found that in cattle which have been fed
with potatoes the black colour changes to a dusty brown; they are
also bad thrivers. A beast that sports that colour is never doing
well. I shall, however, prosecute the inquiry.
The grazier must always consider the quality of his grass-land, and buy
cattle adapted for it. It would be very bad policy to buy fine cattle
for poor or middling lands. You must always keep in view how the cattle
have been kept. If they have been kept improperly for your purpose,
their size, whether large or small, will not save you from loss. If 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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