en the shoulder and the ribs, the line from
the highest part of the shoulder to the insertion of the tail should be
a perfect level. The flank should be full, the loins broad, and the tail
finely formed and only partially covered with hair. The skin is a prime
point: it must be covered with hair of a roan, or other _fashionable_
color, and communicate to the hand of the experienced feeler, a peculiar
sensation, which it is impossible to describe. With regard to this
point, I cannot do better than quote the words of an experienced
"handler":--

"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 mis