"A nice or good judge of cattle or sheep, with a slight touch of the fingers upon the fatting points of the animal--viz., the hips, rump, ribs, flanks, breast, twist, shoulder score, &c. will know immediately whether it will make fat or not, and in which part it will be the fattest. I have often wished to convey in language that idea or sensation we acquire by the touch or feel of our fingers, which enables us to form a judgment when we are handling an animal intended to be fatted, but I have as often found myself unequal to that wish. It is very easy to know where an animal is fattest which is already made fat, because we can evidently feel a substance or quantity of fat--all those parts which are denominated the fatting points; but the difficulty is to explain how we know or distinguish animals, in a lean state, which will make fat and which will not--or rather, which will make fat in such points or parts, and not in others--which a person of judgment (_in practice_) can tell, as it were, instantaneously. I say _in practice_, because I believe that the best judges _out of practice_ are not able to judge with precision--at least, I am not. We say this beast _touches_ nicely upon its ribs, hips, &c., &c., because we find a mellow, pleasant feel on those parts; but we do not say soft, because there are some of this same sort of animals which have a soft, loose handle, of which we do not approve, because, though soft and loose, have not the mellow feel above mentioned. For though they both handle soft and loose, yet we know that the one will make fat and the other will not; and in this lies the difficulty of the explanation. We clearly find a particular kindliness or pleasantness in the feel of the one much superior to the other, by which we immediately conclude that this will make fat, and the other not so fat; and in this a person of judgment, and _in practice_, is very seldom mistaken." In many respects the good points in a Shorthorn cow resemble those in the male of that breed, but in others there is considerable difference. As I have described in prose the excellencies which a bull should possess, I will now give a poetical summary of the good points of a cow of that breed, extracted from the _Journal of Agriculture_, and composed evidently by an excellent breeder and poet, Mr. Carr:--