eir good management. I would recommend my friends,
when they go to a fair for the purpose of purchasing cattle, to take a
confidential servant of their own along with them, or else make it a
part of the bargain that the owner keeps the cattle for a certain time,
till the buyer can get the trucks properly cleaned--which I find no
difficulty in getting done--so that before they allow their cattle to
be trucked they may be satisfied the trucks are thoroughly cleaned.
They should be washed over with chloride of lime, or, what is still
better, given a fresh coat of paint. Three to four shillings will paint
a truck; that is a small matter--say sixpence a-head; but care must be
taken that the paint is dry before the cattle are put into the truck,
else the beasts will be poisoned. If this is neglected, there is great
risk of bringing home foot-and-mouth disease, or even the lung disease.
Some say that it was impossible to attend to such an operation--that
business called them home, and that people would not take home their
cattle. I have never found any difficulty in my own experience; but I
must allow that some sellers are too distant to send the cattle home.
In such an emergency the beasts should be laid past upon a little hay
or straw for a day in the neighbourhood; there is always a field to be
had, or the market green. What is a day, or a man or two, and a night's
hay, if your beasts come safe? Disease has been carried in this way to
hundreds of steadings, and the results have been most disastrous. The
day's rest will be a great advantage to the cattle after the fatigue of
standing in the market. The main object with store cattle should be to
keep them sound on their feet and free from disease. If their transit
is to be by rail, the quality of their food for a day or two is of
minor importance; they will soon recover.

It would be foolish to truck store cattle after they have been at grass
for a few weeks. Their feet get hardened, and in the end of May, and in
June, July, and August, there is no risk of injuring the beasts by
driving in easy stages from ten to fourteen miles a-day. At that season
cattle can hedge it; they will live almost on what they pick up on the
roadsides as they go along. Your cattle arrive safe and sound, and free
from all trouble and risk as respects trucks.

In the dead-meat trade there has now sprung up a new trade and almost a
new race of men. The quantity of dead meat sent from Aberdeen regulate