r meat which characterises the food markets of these days,
has reacted in a remarkable manner upon the nature of the animals that
supply it. Formerly the animals that furnished pork, mutton, and beef,
were allowed to attain the age of three years old and upwards before
they were considered to be "ripe" for the butcher; but now sheep and pigs
are perfectly _matured_ at the early age of one year, and two-year-old
oxen furnish a large quota of the "roast beef of old England." The
so-called improvement of stock is simply the forcing of them into an
unnatural degree of fatness at an early age; and this end is attained
by dexterous selection and crossing of breeds, by avoidance of cold, by
diminishing as much as possible their muscular activity, and lastly,
and chiefly, by over-feeding them with concentrated aliments.

Every one knows that a man so obese as to be unable to walk cannot be
in a healthy state; yet many feeders of stock look upon the monstrously
fat bulls and cows of cattle show prize celebrity as normal types of the
bovine tribe. It requires but little argument to refute so fallacious
a notion. No doubt it is desirable to encourage the breeding of those
varieties of animals which exhibit the greatest disposition to fatten,
and to arrive early at maturity; but the forcing of individual animals
into an unnatural state of obesity, except for purely experimental
purposes, is a practice which cannot be too strongly deprecated. If
breeders contented themselves with handing over to the butcher their
huge living blocks of fat, the matter would not perhaps be very serious;
but, unfortunately, it is too often the practice to turn them to account
as sires and dams. Were I a judge at a cattle show, I certainly should
disqualify every extremely fat animal entered for competition amongst
the breeding stock. Unless parents are healthy and vigorous, their
progeny are almost certain to be unhealthy and weakly; and it is
inconceivable that an extremely obese bull and an unnaturally fat cow
could be the progenitors of healthy offspring. We should by all means
improve our live stock; but we should be careful not to overdo the
thing. If we must have gaily-decked ponderous bulls and cows at our fat
cattle exhibitions, let us condemn to speedy immolation those unhappy
victims to a most absurd fashion; but in the name of common sense let
us leave the perpetuation of the species to individuals in a normal
state, whose muscles are not rep