Chapter 14

Of the qualities of beef obtained from the different breeds of cattle in England, there is no better meat than from the West Highlanders for fineness of grain and cutting up into convenient pieces for family use. The Galloways and Angus, when fattened in English pastures, are great favorites in the London market. The Short Horns afford excellent steaks, being thick of flesh, and the slice deep, large and juicy, and their covered flanks and nineholes are always thick, juicy, and well-mixed. The Herefords are somewhat similar to the Short Horns, and the Devons, may, perhaps, be classed among the Galloways and Angus, while the Welsh cannot be compared to the West Highlanders. Taking, then, the breeds of Scotland as suppliers of good beef, they seem to be more valuable for the table than those of England.

There are, perhaps, not sufficient data in existence to determine the true proportion of offal of all kinds to the beef of any given fat ox; but approximations have been made, which may serve the purpose until the matter is investigated by direct experiment, under various circumstances. The dead weight bears to the live weight a ratio varying between .571 and .605 to 1; and on applying one or the other multiplier to the cases of the live weight, a pretty correct approximation is reached. The tallow is supposed to be eight one-hundredths of the live weight; so that the multiplier is the decimal .08. The hide is supposed to be five one-hundredths of the live weight; so to obtain its weight, a multiplier, .05, is used. The other offals are supposed to be in a proportion of about one-fourth of the live weight; so that the multiplier, .28, is as near as can be proposed under existing experience.

Beef is the staple animal food of this country, and it is used in various states--fresh, salted, smoked, roasted, and boiled. When intended to be eaten fresh, the _ribs_ will keep the best, and with care will keep five or six days in summer, and in winter ten days. The middle of the _loin_ is the next best, and the _rump_ the next. The _round_ will not keep long, unless it is salted. The _brisket_ is the worst, and will not keep more than three days in summer, and in winter a week.

In regard to the power of the stomach to digest beef, that which is eaten boiled with salt only, is digested in two hours and forty-five minutes. Beef, fresh, lean, and rarely-roasted, and a beefsteak broiled, takes three hours to digest; that fresh, and dry-roasted, and boiled, eaten with mustard, is digested in three and a half hours. Lean fresh beef fried, requires four hours, and old hard salted beef boiled, does not digest in less than four and a quarter hours. Fresh beef-suet boiled takes five and a half hours.

The usual mode of preserving beef is by salting; and, when intended to keep for a long time, such as for the use of shipping, it is always salted with brine; but for family use it should be salted only with good salt; for brine dispels the juice of meat, and saltpetre only serves to make the meat dry, and give it a disagreeable and unnatural red color. Various experiments have been made in curing beef with salt otherwise than by hand-rubbing, and in a short space of time, and also to preserve it from putrefaction by other means than salt. Some packers put meat in a copper which is rendered air-tight, and an air-pump then creates a vacuum within it, thereby extracting all the air out of the meat; then brine is pumped in by pressure, which, entering into every pore of the meat formerly occupied by the air, is said to place it in a state of preservation in a few minutes. The carcass of an ox was preserved, in France, for two years from putrefaction by injecting four pounds of saline mixture into the carotid artery. Whether any such contrivance can be made available for family purposes, seems doubtful.

Cattle, when slaughtered, are useful to man in various other ways than by affording food from their flesh,--their offal of tallow, hides, and horns, forming extensive articles of commerce. Of the _hide_, the characteristics of a good one for strong purposes are strength in its middle, or _butt_, as it called, and lightness in the edges, or _offal_. A bad hide is the opposite of this--thick in the edges and thin in the middle. A good hide has a firm texture; a bad one, loose and soft. A hide improves as the summer advances, and it continues to improve after the new coat of hair in autumn until November or December, when the coat gets rough from the coldness of the season, and the hide is then in its best state. It is surprising how a hide improves in thickness after the cold weather has set in. The sort of food does not seem to affect the quality of the hide; but the better it is, and the better cattle have been fed, and the longer they have been well fed, even from a calf, the better the hide. From what has been said of the effect of weather upon the hide, it seems a natural conclusion that a hide is better from an ox that has been fed in the open air, than from one that has been kept in the barn. Dirt adhering to a hide injures it, particularly in stall-fed animals; and any thing that punctures a hide, such as warbles arising from certain insects, is also injurious. The best hides are obtained from the West Highlanders. The Short Horns produce the thinnest hides, the Aberdeenshire the next, and then the Angus. Of the same breed, the ox affords the strongest hide; but, as hides are applied to various uses, the cow's, provided it be large, may be as valuable as that of the ox. The bull's hide is the least valuable. Hides are imported from Russia and South America.

Hides, when deprived of their hair, are converted into _leather_ by an infusion of the astringent property of bark. The old plan of tanning used to occupy a long time; but, such was the value of the process, that the old tanners used to pride themselves upon producing a substantial article--which is more than can be said in many instances under modern improved modes, which hasten the process, much to the injury of the article produced. Strong infusions of bark make leather brittle; one hundred pounds of skin, quickly tanned in a strong infusion, produce one hundred and thirty-seven pounds of leather; while a weak infusion produces only one hundred and seventeen and a half,--the additional nineteen and a half pounds serving only to deteriorate the leather, and causing it to contain much less textile animal solid. Leather thus highly charged with tanning is so spongy as to allow moisture to pass readily through its pores, to the great discomfort and injury of those who wear shoes made of it. The proper mode of tanning lasts a year, or a year and a half, according to the quality of the leather wanted and the nature of the hides. A perfect leather can be recognized by its section, which should have a glistening marbled appearance, without any white streaks in the middle. The hair which is taken off hides in tanning, is employed to mix with plaster, and is often surreptitiously put into hair-mattresses.

The principal substances of which _glue_ is made are the parings of ox and other thick hides, which form the strongest article and the refuse of the leather-dresser. Both afford from forty-five to fifty-five per cent. of glue. The tendons, and many other offals of slaughter-houses, also afford materials, though of an inferior quality, for this purpose. The refuse of tanneries--such as the ears of oxen and calves--are better articles. Animal skins also, in any form, uncombined with tannin, may be worked into glue.

_Ox-tallow_ is of great importance in the arts. Candles and soap are made of it, and it enters largely into the dressing of leather and the use of machinery. Large quantities are annually exported from Russia. Ox-tallow consists of seventy-six parts of stearine and twenty-four of oleine, out of one hundred parts.

The _horns_ of oxen are used for many purposes. The horn consists of two parts: an outward horny case, and an inward conical-shaped substance, somewhat intermediate between indurated hair and bone, called the _fluid_ of the horn. These two parts are separated by means of a blow upon a block of wood. The horny exterior is then cut into three portions by means of a frame saw. The lowest of these, next the root of the horn, after undergoing several processes by which it is rendered flat, is made into combs.

The middle of the horn, after having been flattened by heat, and its transparency improved by oil, is split into thin layers, and forms a substitute for glass in lanterns of the commonest kind. The tip of the horns is used by makers of knife-handles and of the tops of whips, and for other similar purposes. The interior, or core of the horn, is boiled down in water. A large quantity of fat rises to the surface; this is put aside, and sold to the makers of yellow soap. The itself is used as a kind of glue, and is purchased by the cloth-draper for stiffening. The bony substance remaining behind is then sent to the mill, and, after having been ground down, is sold to farmers for manure.

Besides these various purposes to which the different parts of the horn are applied, the clippings which arise in comb-making are sold to the farmer for manure, as well as the shavings which form the refuse of the lantern-makers. Horn, as is well known, is easily rendered soft and pliant in warm water; and by this peculiarity and its property of adhering like glue, large plates of horn can be made by cementing together the edges of small pieces rendered flat by a peculiar process, as a substitute for glass. Imitation of tortoise-shell can be given to horn by means of various metallic solutions. Horn, also, when softened, can be imprinted with any pattern, by means of dies.

Diseases and their Remedies

Under this head it is proposed to notice such diseases as are most common among cattle, together with their symptoms, and to suggest such treatment of the same as has been found in the practice of the author, in the main, effective. He is aware that much more space might have been appropriated to this head, as has been the case in other treatises of this class; but he doubts the propriety of multiplying words about diseases which are of very rare occurrence, deeming it more fitting to leave such instances exclusively to the intelligent consideration of the reliable veterinary practitioner.

For convenience of reference, the diseases here noticed have been arranged in alphabetical order; the whole concluding with information as to two or three operations which cannot be uninteresting to, or unprofitable for, the reader.

ABORTION.

The cow is, more than any other animal, subject to abortion, or slinking, which takes place at different periods of pregnancy, from half of the usual time to the seventh, or almost to the eighth month. The symptoms of the approach of abortion, unless the breeder is very much among his stock, are not often perceived; or, if perceived, they are concealed by the person in charge, lest he should be accused of neglect or improper treatment.

The cow is somewhat off her feed--rumination ceases--she is listless and dull--the milk diminishes or dries up--the motions of the foetus become more feeble, and at length cease altogether--there is a slight degree of enlargement of the belly--there is a little staggering in her walk--when she is down she lies longer than usual, and when she gets up she stands for a longer time motionless.

As the abortion approaches, a yellow or red glairy fluid runs from the vagina (this is a symptom, which rarely, or never, deceives) her breathing becomes laborious and slightly convulsive. The belly has for several days lost its natural rotundity, and has been evidently falling,--she begins to moan,--the pulse becomes small, wiry, and intermittent. At length labor comes on, and is often attended with much difficulty and danger.

If the abortion has been caused by blows or violence, whether from brutality, or the animal's having been teased by other cows in season, or by oxen, the symptoms are more intense. The animal suddenly ceases to eat and to ruminate--is uneasy, paws the ground, rests her head on the manger while she is standing, and on her flank when she is lying down--hemorrhage frequently comes on from the uterus, or when this is not the case the mouth of that organ is spasmodically contracted. The throes come on, are distressingly violent, and continue until the womb is ruptured. If all these circumstances be not observed, still the labor is protracted and dangerous.

Abortion is sometimes singularly frequent in particular districts, or on particular farms, appearing to assume an epizoötic or epidemic form. This has been accounted for in various ways. Some have imagined it to be contagious. It is, indeed, destructively propagated among the cows, but this is probably to be explained on a different principle from that of contagion. The cow is a considerably imaginative animal, and highly irritable during the period of pregnancy. In abortion, the foetus is often putrid before it is discharged; and the placenta, or after-birth, rarely or never follows it, but becomes decomposed, and, as it drops away in fragments, emits a peculiar and most noisome smell. This smell seems to be peculiarly annoying to the other cows: they sniff at it and then run bellowing about. Some sympathetic influence is exercised on their uterine organs, and in a few days a greater or less number of those that had pastured together likewise abort. Hence arises the rapidity with which the foetus is usually taken away and buried deeply, and far from the cows; and hence the more effectual preventive of smearing the parts of the cow with tar or stinking oils, in order to conceal or subdue the smell; and hence, too, the inefficacy, as a preventive, of removing her to a far-distant pasture.

The pastures on which the blood or inflammatory fever is most prevalent are those on which the cows oftenest slink their calves. Whatever can become a source of general excitation and fever is likely, during pregnancy, to produce inflammation of the womb; or whatever would, under other circumstances, excite inflammation of almost any organ, has at that time its injurious effect determined to this particular one.

Every farmer is aware of the injurious effect of the coarse, rank herbage of low, marshy, and woody countries, and he regards these districts as the chosen residence of red water; it may be added, that they are also the chosen residence of abortion. Hard and mineral waters are justly considered as laying the foundation of many diseases among cattle, and of abortion among the rest.

Some careful observers have occasionally attributed abortion to disproportion in size between the male and the female. Farmers were formerly too fond of selecting a great overgrown bull to serve their dairy or breeding cows, and many a heifer, or little cow, was seriously injured; and she either cast her calf, or was lost in parturition. The breeders of cattle in later years are beginning to act more wisely in this matter.

Cows that are degenerating into consumption are exceedingly subject to abortion. They are continually in heat; they rarely become pregnant, or if they do, a great proportion of them cast their calves. Abortion, also, often follows a sudden change from poor to luxuriant food. Cows that have been out, half-starved in the winter, when incautiously turned on rich pasture in the spring, are too apt to cast their calves from the undue general or local excitation that is set up. Hence it is, that when this disposition to abort first appears in a herd, it is naturally in a cow that has been lately purchased. Fright, from whatever cause, may produce this trouble. There are singular cases on record of whole herds of cows slinking their calves after having been terrified by an unusually violent thunder-storm. Commerce with the bull soon after conception is also a frequent cause, as well as putrid smells--other than those already noticed--and the use of a diseased bull. Besides these tangible causes of abortion, there is the mysterious agency of the atmosphere. There are certain seasons when abortion is strangely frequent, and fatal; while at other times it disappears in a manner for several successive years.

The consequences of premature calving are frequently of a very serious nature; and even when the case is more favorable, the results are, nevertheless, very annoying. The animal very soon goes again to heat, but in a great many cases she fails to become pregnant; she almost invariably does so, if she is put to the bull during the first heat after abortion. If she should come in calf again during that season, it is very probable that at about the same period of gestation, or a little later, she will again abort: or that when she becomes in calf the following year, the same fatality will attend her. Some say that this disposition to cast her young gradually ceases; that if she does miscarry, it is at a later and still later period of pregnancy; and that, in about three or four years, she may be depended upon as a tolerably safe breeder. He, however, would be sadly inattentive to his own interests who keeps a profitless beast so long.

The calf very rarely lives, and in the majority of cases it is born dead or putrid. If there should appear to be any chance of saving it, it should be washed with warm water, carefully dried, and fed frequently with small quantities of new milk, mixed, according to the apparent weakness of the animal, either with raw eggs or good gruel; while the bowels should, if occasion requires, be opened by means of small doses of castor-oil. If any considerable period is to elapse before the natural time of pregnancy would have expired, it will usually be necessary to bring up the little animal entirely by hand.

The treatment of abortion differs but little from that of parturition. If the farmer has once been tormented by this pest in his dairy, he should carefully watch the approaching symptoms of casting the calf, and as soon as he perceives them, should remove the animal from the pasture to a comfortable cow-house or shed. If the discharge be glairy, but not offensive, he may hope that the calf is not dead; he will be assured of this by the motion of the foetus, and then it is possible that the abortion may still be avoided. He should hasten to bleed her, and that copiously, in proportion to her age, size, condition, and the state of excitation in which he may find her; and he should give a dose of physic immediately after the bleeding. When the physic begins to operate, he should administer half a drachm of opium and half an ounce of sweet spirits of nitre. Unless she is in a state of great debility, he should allow nothing but gruel, and she should be kept as quiet as possible. By these means he may occasionally allay the general or local irritation that precedes or causes the abortion, and the cow may yet go to her full time.

Should, however, the discharge be fetid, the conclusion will be that the foetus is dead, and must be got rid of, and that as speedily as possible. Bleeding may even then be requisite if much fever exists; or, perhaps, if there is debility, some stimulating drink may not be out of place. In other respects the animal must be treated as if her usual time of pregnancy had been accomplished.

Much may be done in the way of preventing this habit of abortion among cows. _The foetus must be got rid of immediately._ It should be buried deep, and far from the cow-pasture. Proper means should be taken to hasten the expulsion of the placenta. A dose of physic should be given; ergot of rye administered; the hand should be introduced, and an effort made, cautiously and gently, to detach the placenta; all violence, however, should be carefully avoided; for considerable and fatal hemorrhage may be speedily produced. The parts of the cow should be well washed with a solution of the chloride of lime, which should be injected up the vagina, and also given internally. In the mean time, and especially after the expulsion of the placenta, the cow-house should be well washed with the same solution.

The cow, when beginning to recover, should be fattened and sold. This is the first and the grand step toward the prevention of abortion, and he is unwise who does not immediately adopt it. All other means are comparatively inefficient and worthless. Should the owner be reluctant to part with her, two months, at least, should pass before she is permitted to return to her companions. Prudence would probably dictate that she should never return to them, but be kept, if possible, on some distant part of the farm.

Abortion having once occurred among the herd, the breeding cows should be carefully watched. Although they should be well fed, they should not be suffered to get into too high condition. Unless they are decidedly poor and weak, they should be bled between the third and fourth months of pregnancy, and a mild dose of physic administered to each. If the pest continues to reappear, the owner should most carefully examine how far any of the causes of abortion that have been detected, may exist on his farm, and exert himself to thoroughly remove them.

An interesting paper upon this subject may be found in the Veterinary Review, vol. 1., p. 434, communicated by Prof. Henry Tanner, of Queen's College, Birmingham, England. As it suggests a theory as to the origin of this disease which is, to say the least, quite plausible, we transfer the article:--

"I shall not go into any notice of the general subject of abortion, but rather restrict my remarks to a cause which is very much overlooked, and yet which is probably more influential than all other causes combined. I refer to the growth of ergotized grass-seeds in our pastures.

"The action of ergot of rye (_secale cornutum_) upon the womb is well known as an excitant to powerful action, which usually terminates in the expulsion of the foetus. We have a similar disease appearing on the seeds of our grasses, but especially on the rye grass, and thus we have an ergot of the seeds of rye grass produced, possessing similar exciting powers upon the womb to those produced by the ergot of rye.

"Two conditions are necessary for the production of this ergot upon the seed of rye grass. The first is, the grass must be allowed to run to seed; and the second is, that the climate must be favorable for encouraging the development of the ergot.

"In practice, we find that on land which has been fed on during the summer, unless it has been grazed with unusual care, much of the grass throws up seed-stalks and produces seed. In districts where the climate is humid and rain abundant, as well as in very wet seasons, these seeds become liable to the growth of this ergot. Cattle appear to eat it with a relish, and the result is that abortion spreads rapidly through the herd. Heifers and cows, which, up to the appearance of the ergot, have held in calf, are excited to cast their calves by consuming it in their food. The abortion having once commenced, we know that the peculiarly sensitive condition of the breeding animal will cause its extension, even where the original cause may not be in operation; but their combined action renders the loss far more serious. If we add to this the tendency which an animal receives from her first abortion, to repeat it when next in calf, we see how seriously the mischief becomes multiplied.