5. No possible increase of food, however nutritious it may be, can suffice to keep up the due warmth and healthy condition of the animal frame in winter, if shelter from cold and rain be not simultaneously effected. On the contrary, an animal well protected from the winter blasts will require much less food than if it were placed in an exposed position. The reason of this is, that the amount of food which an animal exposed to great cold consumes to maintain the temperature of its body would, under opposite conditions, be stored up in the form of permanent "increase"--beef or mutton for the butcher, in fact. The fat-forming constituents of the food of stock are in no case converted into permanent fat, except when they exceed in quantity the amount required to keep up the internal heat of the animal; but when this is constantly reduced by exposure to a wintry temperature, the food becomes insufficient for even that purpose, no matter how much aliment is given. What, then, must not be the condition of the unfortunate animals whose fate it is to be the property of a farmer who neither shelters them from the weather nor provides them with a sufficient quantity of nourishing food! _Milch Cows._--When dairy-farming is conducted on pure pastures, the cows are altogether dependent upon the grasses; and in winter, the animals suffer much from scarcity of food. This is the very worst system of cow-keeping, but it is prevalent amongst many small farmers in Ireland, and is to be met with even in England and Scotland. I am strongly of opinion that it would be far more economical to keep cows (and other cattle) altogether in the house, and feed them with cut grass, than to allow them to remain out altogether in the field. There are several disadvantages resulting from the depasturing of cows. In the warm weather, the animals are greatly annoyed by the attacks of flies: there is a considerable waste of muscle, caused by the movements of the animals whilst in search of their food; and the excrements of the animals and their footmarks injure a large portion of the grass. It may be somewhat troublesome and expensive to cut the grass, and convey it from the field to the house; but the labor and the cost will be more than repaid by the greatly-increased yield of food. A grass-field, mowed, will produce from 20 to 30 per cent. more food than it would if it were trampled upon and soiled by cattle. Exercise for an hour or two in the cool of the evening, or early in the morning (during the hot weather), will be quite sufficient to keep the animals in health. This may be taken in a field, better in a paddock, best of all in a roomy yard. When cattle are supplied with cut grass, or clover, care should be taken not to give it to them when very wet, for otherwise there is danger of the excessively moist herbage producing the _hoove_. Neither should large quantities of the green food be given to them--the supply