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though they are very often slaughtered when not more thanhalf fat.
Small cattle are not usually stall-fed in Scotland . Theirearly habits^render them less lit even for the confinement ofstraw-yards, until they have been kept for a season in the lowcountry.
2. The larger breeds are fattened chiefly on turnips withstraw, and are either chained to the stake by the neck, or tostaples in the wall by the horns; or kept loose in sheds andfold-yards, divided into small spaces, in each of which twoare commonly kept together.
The former is the most general practice. In many feed-ing houses the cattle are not separated by any partition. Theturnips are laid on the floor of the byre*—the wall before them,and a piece of timber raised a little above the floor and pa-rallel to the wall at a distance of 18 or 20 inches, forming thetwo sides of their crib or trough. The turnips afe either gi-ven them from behind, or thrown in through an opening ofthe wall at their heads, whicli is covered by boards moving-on hinges. The first improvement made upon this inconve-nient and dangerous practice, was to run partitions or rails ofcoarse planks between every two beasts, which, in a greatmeasure, prevented a mischievous one from disturbing hisneighbours, and permitted two of the same size to be kept to-gether, though at a sufficient distance from each other. Thetroublesome method of feeding them from behind has beenalso laid aside; and in the best constructed feeding houses,cattle are now placed at such a distance (from 3 to 4 feet)from the wall, as allows the feeder to pass with their food ina wheelbarrow or basket from one end of the house to theother. Each beast has a separate stone-trough, and racksfor hay and straw are placed upon the partition which sepa-rates the cattle from the feeder’s walk. At one end of thefeeding house is a turnip shed, and at the other a straw barn,each having a door which opens into the feeder’s walk. Thecattle were formerly allow T ed too little room, not more than