been taught every branch of farming, experimentally, practically, and scientifically; and I have farmed extensively on my own account for many years, besides superintending landed property, and keeping estate books and accounts. I have received, in short, a first-class agricultural education in all its branches, and it is with these qualifications that I felt myself justified in writing the following pages. I have the honour of introducing my volume to the public under the favourable auspices of His Grace the Duke of Sutherland, who at all times takes a lively interest not only in the science of agriculture, but in every branch of husbandry, and in whatever tends to the good of society at large; and of whom it may well be said that he is popular more for himself than for the high station he occupies.

I now consign my book to the tribunal of public opinion, convinced that, whatever its shortcomings may be, my efforts are well-intended, and that the excellence of my performance is to be estimated, by considering the degree in which it is calculated to answer the design for which it has been written. D. G. F. M.

London, 1872.

CATTLE, SHEEP, AND DEER.

CHAPTER I.

WE may at once class cattle, sheep, and deer as the most useful and valuable of animals to the human family. Without them there could be no real prosperity in this or any other country. Nations in every age have, indeed, acknowledged their utility. Moreover, with our increasing population, numbering upwards of thirty-one millions of persons, and the flesh of those animals being the staple aliment of all classes of society, their culture is a matter of the greatest importance. From the days of Abraham, who was rich in cattle, and of Job, who counted his herds by thousands, down to the owners of our own land, farming has held the highest place amongst the occupations of civilized men; and the "cattle upon a thousand hills" will continue to be the symbol of wealth and honour.

Pastoral life has always been regarded as one of tranquil enjoyment; and poets, both ancient and modern, sacred and profane, have sung its praises, and extolled its pleasures in the most glowing terms. The sacred writers, addressing a pastoral people, could use no stronger language to enforce their

B

meaning, than to exhibit physical and moral beauty under the figurative emblems of "milk and honey." Palestine, a pastoral country, was thus characterized; and we, who live in a mechanical age, can but very inadequately enter into the feelings, or appreciate the language, of the writers of Scripture history, in their estimation of a species of food so admirably adapted to the wants of nomadic life. The wandering Arab, that stereotyped copy of man's earliest physical and mental condition, regards his camel with feelings inappreciable by a European; for he knows that she can convert the hard bent and withered shrubs of the desert into a food grateful at all times and in all countries, but especially so in the parching climes of the East. And the poor Laplander and Siberian, shrouded in snows for two-thirds of their existence, place an equal value upon the scanty produce of the reindeer. The sheep and goats occupy a similar position in the estimation of the inhabitants of the mountainous countries of Asia and Europe, and browse in safety on the verge of precipices and in the clefts of rocks inaccessible to less agile animals, thus enabling man to obtain food and clothing from localities where cultivation is impossible. It is principally in cultivated countries that we find these animals supplanted by the cow, which, as a producer of milk, is in every respect superior to all others, both for the quantity she yields and its adaptation to the taste of every individual; for there are few to whom milk,

THE OX AND THE SHEEP.

3

in some form or other, is not only a necessary but

an agreeable species of food.

"Thrice, oh thrice happy, shepherd's life and state!
When courts are happiness' unhappy pawns!

His cottage low and safely humble gate

Shuts out proud Fortune with her scorns and fawns:
No feared treason breaks his quiet sleep,

Singing all day, his flocks he learns to keep;
Himself as innocent as are his simple sheep."

Reckoning from the time of the Flood, the native country of the ox was the plain of Ararat. Having issued from the ark, he was found wherever the sons of Noah migrated; and to the present day he is found in a domesticated or wild state wherever man has trodden. Even in the antediluvian age, and soon after the expulsion from Eden, the sheep had become the servant of man; and Youatt draws the not improbable inference that the no less useful ox was subjugated at the same time. It is recorded that Jubal, the son of Lamech, and who was likely born during the lifetime of Adam, was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle. When Abraham was in Egypt, one hundred and eighty years before there is any mention of the horse, Pharaoh presented him with sheep and oxen. Thus the earliest record we have of cattle is in the sacred volume.

Profane history, too, confirms the account of the early domestication of this animal. It was worshipped by the Egyptians, and venerated among the Indians. Moreover, the traditions of every Celtic