460 LIVE STOCK:

of good meat, there is not an atom wasted. Mut: ton, indeed, is the meat chiefly intended here, since far enough from being in the habit of over- fattening beef, our bullocks are too commonly driven to market, barely half-fat; and the poor, even in the metropolis, find duficulty in obtaining good mellow beef. The plea, that the superfluous mutton-fat is consumed by the manufacturing and peasant poor, only serves to shew how little the as- sertors of it are, acquainted with the, habits and nclinations of those descriptions of people: and were it valid, the cause would gain but little, by pretending to serve the manufacturer, often a se- dentary person, with an extravagant, wasteful, and unwholesome article of food.

The above are among the objections to that form im animals, which oceasions them to lay the fat on so thick and fast externally, that they deceive us with the appearance of ripeness, before they have made any progress within; and when really ripe, are converted into mere masses of blubber, Jike sea-calves: also against the over- fattening any ani- mals, which is purely an ostentatious waste of{ food, since after the lean, from its thorough ripeness, hath ceased to grow, and the future product shall be nothing but fat, to be part ly wasted, and partly sold at an inferior price, in the ordinary course of things, the profit ceases, and the ba- lance of the’ account. turns against all parties: the ee-meat would have been more profitably

‘bestowed upon another animal.. The criterion of

ripeness, in, fattening animals, is a matter depend- ent upon practical circumstances: the period of time,

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