Page:Husbandman and Housewife 1820.djvu/131

 animal to be of a good breed, and occasions less weight of unprofitable substance to the consumer.

Horns are useless to domestic animals, and occasion a great weight of bone in the head. The skull of a ram with horns weighed five times as much as that of one without horns, each being four years old. A mode of breeding which would prevent the production of horns, would therefore afford a considerable saving.

The length of the neck should be proportioned to the height of the animal, that it may collect its food with ease.

Muscles. The muscles and tendons, which are their appendages should be large, by which an animal is enabled to travel with greater facility.

Bones. The strength of an animal does not depend on the size of the bones, but on that of the muscles; many animals with large bones are weak, their muscles being small.

Animals imperfectly nourished during growth have their bones disproportionally large. If this originated from a constitutional defect, they remain weak during life; large bones may therefore indicate an imperfection in the organs of nutrition.

Of the improvement of Form.

The chief point to be attended to for the improvement of form, from Mr. Cline's principles, is the selection of males for breed of a proportionally smaller size than the females, both being of approved forms; the size of the fœtus depends on the size of the female, and therefore when the female is disproportionally small, her offspring has all the