(81.) Differences in the quality of Mutton.—I shall now enter a little into the manner in which the quality of the flesh may be affected, and the methods of judging of the different states or conditions, in which it may be found under various circumstances; premising that it requires much experience, to enable a person to pronounce with confidence, as to the value of the muscular parts, from the inspection of a living animal:—The flesh of different specimens of the same animal, varies not so much from breed or descent, as from age, feeding, and exercise. That of the young is soft and gelatinous, the fibres being small, weak, and much interspersed with a substance termed, from its loose appearance, cellular tissue. This tissue exhibits in the spaces between the muscles (layers of flesh) small masses of delicate fat. The greater bulk of the latter is situated immediately beneath the skin, and occasions that beautiful rotundity so much admired in children. As the animal advances in life, the fibres become firmer, larger, and more approximated, the cellular tissue disappears to a great extent, the fat shifts from the outward to the inward parts, allowing the outline of the muscles to be distinctly seen, but giving at the same time to the figure that portly symptom of good keeping, so unpleasant to the eye when carried to the extent of Aldermanic dignity. All these appearances are, however, varied by exercise, which tends, in a marked degree, to increase the muscular parts at the expense of the fat—the former becoming, when employed within proper limits, large, and unyielding to the touch, while at the same time the colour is heightened from a pale or purple hue, to the bright vermilion so justly relied upon by housewives, as a guarantee for the superior qualities of the article. The wild horses in South America, which form the principal part of Indian diet, are said by these epicures to be much improved for the table by gentle labour, and to be quite on a par when thus cared for, with some of our best beef. This plan is, however, only pursued for the purpose of rendering the flesh of their horses moderately firm; but where an opposite effect is desired it is readily, though cruelly, produced by putting the animal to a lingering death; examples of which practice are to be met with in the annals of most civilized nations; as in the German mode of whipping pigs, and the English custom of baiting bulls;[ [14] both tending to the same end, by so exhausting vital contractibility as to prevent its last and faint display in the stiffening of the carcass.
Marshall, who touches very slightly on the subject, says, "The flesh of sheep when slaughtered is well known to be of various qualities: some is composed of large coarse grains, interspersed with wide empty pores, like a sponge; others of large grains, with wide pores filled with fat; others of fine close grains with smaller pores filled with fat; and a fourth of close grains without any mixture of fatness. The flesh of sheep when dressed is equally well known to possess a variety of qualities: some mutton is coarse, dry, and insipid,—a dry sponge affording little or no gravy of any colour. Another sort is somewhat firmer, imparting a light-coloured gravy only. A third plump, short, and palatable, affording a mixture of white and red gravy. A fourth likewise plump, and well-flavoured, but discharging red gravy only, and this in various quantities. It is likewise observable that some mutton, when dressed, appears covered with a thick, tough, parchment-like integument; others with a membrane comparatively fine and flexible." This membrane ought to be rather thin than thick, as, when of the latter texture, you may safely affirm that the animal was aged. Looseness is reckoned a bad quality of the flesh of sheep during life, as indicating a coarse-grained porous mutton, and as equally exceptionable with that of hardness: while mellowness, and firmness, are much to be desired, as forming a happy mixture, deemed by some the point of perfection. The tendency to become fat at an early age, though a valuable one in some points, is not so in others. Premature decay is always the result, showing with certainty that a healthy action has not been going on. An animal when loaded with fat cannot be looked upon otherwise than as in a diseased state, and liable to embarassment of many organs, especially of the heart and brain. Sudden death on any hurried exertion is far from rare, and life, from the difficulty of enjoying it, is any thing but desirable.
(82.) Abuses in Feeding.—The custom of over-feeding was carried to an absurd extent on the promulgation of Bakewell's method, nothing less being aspired to than the glory of laying seven or eight inches of fat on the ribs of sheep. This folly however had its day: the ridiculous parts of the system have to a great extent disappeared, while attention to the production of an increased quantity of mutton, without too great an abundance of fat, has remained to prove to the world the value of the benefits which the English farmer conferred upon his country. Overgrown sheep are indeed good for nothing "save" in the words of Meg Dods, "to obtain premiums at cattle shows, and deluge dripping-pans with liquid fat;" and in this every one will agree, excepting always boarding-school cooks, and others who depend for their principal perquisites on the over-roasting of oily meat! The fat, though not reckoned as offal in the slaughter-house, will speedily show itself as such in the kitchen, by the waste during the cooking process, even in England where fat meat is so much admired; and it is surely absurd to pay the price of good mutton for tallow, when if the latter were really wanted, it could be procured at a cheaper rate by itself, than when forming part of a dear commodity. The only way in which over-fat meat can at all be reckoned profitable, is in its application to the wants of the working classes, whose bodily labour enables them to enjoy what would to others prove displeasing in the extreme, and to digest and assimilate with ease, food which to the sons of sloth would prove a poison. So far as these wants have been supplied, the attempt of Bakewell has been attended with the happiest results, as he and his disciples have placed by their well-spent exertions much good food within the reach of the poorer classes, which they must otherwise have gone without; while in many instances it has driven bacon from the market, being a cheaper and more palatable commodity, which cannot but contribute to the health of the people, seeing the continued use of salted meat is calculated to injure the body, and render it liable to many diseases. Marshall remarks, that fat, like charity, covers a multitude of faults: and he is right, for an ill-shaped animal if well fed, has all its angles speedily effaced, and if its ugliness has not amounted to absolute deformity, it acquires that rotundity of contour so pleasing to the eye, and so apt to mislead us.
The rapidity is various with which animals take on fat, much depending on hereditary predisposition, and the nature of the food; and much also on the state of the atmosphere, and quiet habits; a moist and rather warm air tending greatly to the advancement of the process, some birds becoming fat in twenty-four hours of wet weather. Children that have been emaciated by diseases often resume their original plump condition in a few days; and animals that have been famished, as hogs, afterwards fatten very rapidly. Moderate and repeated bleedings, mild farinaceous diet, and emasculation conjoined, tend to the repletion of the body, and to the speedy deposition of fat; yet it would appear, that when acquired in this rapid manner, it never possesses the value in a culinary point of view, that is yielded to such as has been slowly formed, when, as one may say, the worthless particles have had time to be removed, and the remaining part to become a firm and healthy deposit. It is partly owing to this, that animals are never at their best when forced to take on fat at an early age, but are most esteemed by the gourmand when they, as in the case of the sheep, have lived from three to four years.
(83.) Tendency to acquire Fat.—A disposition to early obesity, as well as a tendency to that form which indicates a propensity to fatten, is materially promoted by a good supply of rich food, while the animal is in a growing state. The Spanish shepherds are so well aware of this, that half of the lambs are annually killed, that the survivors may obtain every indulgence in the way of milk. Care should be taken never to place animals suddenly on food much superior in feeding qualities to what they have left. Very lean sheep are never put to full turnips in winter, nor to rich pastures in summer, but are prepared for turnips on good grass lands, and kept on second years' leys, and afterwards given a moderate allowance of turnips if they are to be fatted on pastures. It is an invariable rule with all good managers, never to allow this or any other animal, reared solely for the shambles, to lose flesh from its earliest age till it is sent to the butcher as more food is necessary to bring it to a certain condition than to keep it at it. In the case of the Dishleys, it is customary to keep all in a state of fatness, except those intended for breeding, and after full feeding on turnips during winter and spring, to finish them on the first year's clover early in summer, when the prices of meat are usually the highest; so that this variety is always fit for market at eighteen months, while the Highland breeds, though prepared by means of turnips, a year at least, sooner than in former times, do not usually go to the shambles till from three to four years old.
(84.) Frequent change of Pasture necessary.—Sheep ought never to be permitted to remain too long on one pasture:—Great benefit will be derived from their removal from time to time to different parts even of the same farm, by which arrangement a change of herbage will be ensured. No animal can be kept for any length of time in health, if restricted to one unvarying routine of diet. This has been satisfactorily proved by the experiments of Majendie, who found that health could not be sustained on one or even two kinds of food beyond the thirtieth day. Now, though such immediate injury cannot result to a flock from retention on a particular pasture, owing to the variety of sustenance being considerable, yet proportional harm will ensue sufficient to induce us not to repeat the risk. Nature, the best of guides in all that relates to the protection of her creatures, is no where more pointed in her directions than on this head. A necessity for a variety of food, and a desire to secure it, are implanted in the disposition of every animal; and where is the creature more prone to extensive rambles than the sheep? We limit it to a paltry pasture-ground of roods and acres, but does it not show, by its determination to transgress our barriers, that such is not the treatment nature has designed for it? There is something more than wildness of character, and restless disposition, in the powerful attempts it continually makes to defy our artificial boundaries. There is in these efforts a longing for fresh fields and other herbage, an instinctive feeling that all is not as it ought to be; and yet we attend not to the hint! Nothing will conduce so much to the health of the sheep, and to the speedy taking on of fat, as the frequent shifting of the flock. Disease will doubtless still affect the animals, but illness will be rare, and mortality diminished, if by the care of their rulers, they are enabled to obtain what instinct tells them is the best of medicine.
(85.) Varieties induced by apparently trivial causes.—Surrounded in a civilized state, by all that can minister to the supply of wants, whether real or supposed, man is not on that account to be imagined as always so situated. Look to savage nations, and remark their destitute condition, their dependence on the uncertain proceeds of the chase, and their reliance on modes of agriculture as unprofitable as they are unmatured. Countries there are certainly to be found, where the "elements of temperature," are so fortunately balanced and combined as to produce only good effects, and in which the rude inhabitants reap the fruits of a spontaneous plenty; but these form only a small proportion of the globe, and in most regions man must give his unceasing endeavours to the cultivation of a plant or animal, before he can raise it from the miniature condition in which he finds it, to such a size and richness as will satisfy his wants. Nor need we go far for illustrations. The crab has been transformed into the apple, and the sloe into the plum. None of our cereal grasses, as now cultivated, are to be met with in a wild state; they have evidently been brought to their present fulness by the care of ages. The red cabbage and the cauliflower are the altered descendants of a widely different sea-side plant. The different races of cabbages are examples of a wonderful deviation from the natural type, and they all require much nicety in cultivation to prevent them assuming the characters of the original stock, as, when permitted to grow wild, especially on a sterile soil as that of the sea coast, they are sure in no long time to become exact counterparts of their originals. Cultivation, also, though taken in rather a different sense, influences to a great extent the form and features of animals. In proof of this may be adduced the differences that exist between different ranks of inhabitants in almost all countries. Buffon says, that in France you may distinguish by their aspect not only the nobles from the peasantry, but the superior orders of nobility from the inferior—these from citizens, and citizens from peasants. The African field-slaves in America, are extremely different from the domestic servants of the former nation, retaining as they do their original peculiarities from poor living and degrading duties; while the latter have nearly approached to the habits and modes of thinking of their masters, from living with them, and being well treated under the same roof. "The South Sea islanders," says Dr Elliotson, "who appear to be all of one family, vary according to their degree of cultivation. The New Zealanders, for example, are savages, and chiefly black; the New Hollanders half civilized, and chiefly tawny; the Friendly islanders are more advanced, and not quite so dark; several are lighter than olive colour, and hundreds of European faces are found among them." Indeed the examples are almost endless which I could bring forward to aid my explanations; but these it would be needless to give, since it is in the power of every one to study the differences in form and features of the classes of society in our own island, and by so doing understand the influence of otherwise trivial and unimportant circumstances, on an animal at all times so easily moulded to situation as the sheep.
(86.) Varieties from mode of Breeding.—Changes are wrought for the most part by attention to the mode of propagation of the plant or animal, by the plan of crossing; and by careful selection of the parent stock. Every one must be struck with the varieties constantly occurring in the vegetable world: Flowers change their colours, and become double; and these characters can be perpetuated by seed. Hedge-row plants may be observed to vary even in the limits of an ordinary walk, and to be continued as varieties so long as they remain in the same locality. The following striking example of the extent to which plants may be made to vary by altering their circumstances, is related by Mr Herbert in the Horticultural Transactions, vol. iv:—"I raised from the natural seed of an umbel of a highly manured red cowslip, a primrose, a cowslip, oxlips of the usual and other colours, a black polyanthus, a hose-in-hose cowslip, and a natural primrose bearing its flower on a polyanthus stalk. From the seed of that very hose-in-hose cowslip, I have since raised a hose-in-hose primrose. I therefore consider all these to be only local varieties, depending upon soil and situation." "Fifty years ago," says Buffon (writing in 1749), "our pot-herbs consisted of a single species of succory, and two of lettuce, both very bad; but we have now more than fifty kinds of lettuce and succory, all of which are good. Our best fruits and nuts, which are so different from those formerly cultivated that they have no resemblance but in the name, must likewise be referred to a very modern date. In general, substances remain, and names change with times: but in this case names remain, and substances are changed. Our peaches, our apricots, our pears, are new productions with ancient names. To remove every doubt upon this subject, we have only to compare our flowers and fruits with the descriptions, or rather notices of them transmitted to us by the Greeks and Romans. All their flowers were single, and all their fruit-trees were wild stocks, and their species very ill-chosen. Their fruits of course, were small, dry, sour, and had neither the flavour nor the beauty of ours. These new and good species originally sprung from the wild kinds; but how many times have their seeds been sown before this happy effect was produced? It was only by sowing and rearing an infinite number of vegetables of the same species, that some individuals were recognized to bear better and more succulent fruit than others; and this first discovery, which supposes much care and observation, would have remained for ever useless if a second had not been made, which implies an equal degree of genius as the first required of patience—I mean the mode of multiplying by engrafting those precious individuals which unfortunately cannot propagate or transmit their excellent qualities to their posterity. * * * In the animal kingdom, most of those qualities which appear to be individual are propagated and transmitted in the same manner as their specific qualities. It was therefore more easy for man to have influence upon the nature of animals than upon that of vegetables. Particular races in any species of animals, are only constant varieties, which are perpetuated by generation. But in the vegetable kingdom there are no races, no varieties so constant as to be perpetuated by reproduction. In the species of the hen and pigeon, a great number of races have been very lately produced, all of which propagate their kinds. In other species, we daily rear and improve races by crossing the breeds."
(87.) Breeding in-and-in.—Though there are several methods pursued by breeders for the improvement of flocks, the one most in vogue is, that of choosing individuals of the same family, and breeding in-and-in. It is however a plan requiring, for the safety of the flock, either very great skill in selecting the males and females, or only to be followed to a very limited extent. No subject ever called forth so much random controversy, and no evil has ever so clearly shown itself as such; yet it is only recently, that people have opened the intellectual eye to the dangers of a practice, against which the ablest pens were long and vainly blunted. The object of breeding in-and-in is to strengthen good qualities and get rid of bad ones, as speedily as possible; and it is plain, that if we happen to select animals with slight imperfections, these imperfections will become hereditary, and will go on assuming a worse and worse type till the breed be destroyed. Culley, however, was of opinion, that less risk is run by breeding in-and-in than is generally supposed, and instances the wild cattle in Chillingham Park, in the county of Northumberland, which, having been confined for several hundred years without intermixture, must have bred from the nearest affinities, and yet are just as they were five hundred years since. With all due deference, however, to the opinion of the late Mr Culley, I must assert, that I cannot perceive in what manner wild cattle can be made to illustrate the case in point, as it must be evident, that animals in a state of nature differ essentially from those in charge of man, in regard to the propagation of infirmities, as the former, if born with a radical defect, will, ten to one, never see the age which suits them for reproduction; while the latter, from the care bestowed upon them, will, even when very delicate, in many instances be bolstered up till they have entailed upon posterity an accumulation of their already aggravated maladies. The system of breeding in-and-in proves, in fact, as destructive to flocks, as marriages of near relations to the human kind. We would not witness an every-day entailment of diseases, if people would forego their unnatural love of money, and cease their endeavours to keep it in "the family," by forming matrimonial alliances with those who are near of kin. The law of God forbids us to wed those who stand in certain degrees of propinquity; but, if we and our descendants avail ourselves of the limits of this law, and marry on its verge a certain number of times, misery must infallibly be the lot even of the tenth generation; and instead of being fathers of a mighty people, few and full of sorrow will be the days of our children; while in place of retaining in their possession our darling wealth, it will, ere long, pass into the hand of the stranger.
(88.) Opponents of in-and-in breeding.—Different individuals at various times, and in widely separate places, have by their observations rendered the criminal absurdity of this system perfectly apparent to all, who, unbiased by party principle, are anxious for a knowledge of the truth. A few of these I shall mention. Ezra L'Hommedieu, Vice-president of the Agricultural Society of New York, collected, in the year 1800, a great many observations on the breeding of sheep, and came to the conclusion, that changing and crossing the breed of the animals is a matter of great importance, in preventing a dwindling and degeneracy of the flock. Dr Coventry, in his pamphlet on Live-Stock, gives it as his opinion, that "The most perfect race of animals may be debased by improper mixture, or injured by improper treatment. Indiscriminate matches in breeding, and inattentive management in rearing, are alike capable of producing a worthless progeny." Here the matter is made very plain, from comparing an evil, the progress of which is insidious, with the injurious consequences, which the most unobserving can easily trace to a parallel neglect. Mr Dick of Edinburgh, so well known for the valuable and trustworthy information he has accumulated, has been informed by eminent farmers, "that cattle bred in-and-in, are very subject to clyers in the throat after they have attained their first year." By clyers are meant enlarged lymphatic glands, which are a sure sign of what is termed a scrofulous habit, a breaking up of the constitution, which, though produced by a variety of causes, is yet frequently the result of an "owr sib" connection. These are, I may say, the accidental opinions of men who had no point to make good, in which their credit was at all at stake, and who are not endeavouring to support the crude opinions of former years. For these reasons, they possess a value which ought to give them a proportional weight in an investigation like the present. Mr Bakewell succeeded in bringing his sheep to great perfection as regards form, and rapidity of fattening, by breeding in the same family for a great many years; but it was attended with considerable deterioration in the quality of the wool, and engendered a liability to disease, sufficient to deter any one from proceeding a similar length in the same track, to what is so dubiously called improvement. See what Mr Dickson says to this effect, in a recent number of the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture. "The evil of breeding in-and-in, or in other words, producing too great refinement of tone, is manifested in the first instance by a tenderness of constitution; the animals not being able to withstand the extremes of heat and cold, rain and drought. If the evil is prolonged through several generations, the forms of the animals become affected, the bone becomes very small, the neck droops, the skin of the head becomes tight and scantily covered with hair, the expression of the eye indicates extreme sensibility, the hair on the body becomes thin and short, and the skin as thin as paper; the points continue good, and predisposition to fatness increases, but the whole carcass becomes much diminished in size, though retaining its plumpness, and beautiful symmetry. The evil, however, does not terminate in the production of these symptoms. Internal diseases ensue, such as disorganization of the liver, or rot, polypi in the trachea, clyers, malformation of the bones of the neck and legs, and general deformity." This position, however, will be strengthened by drawing attention to insulated portions of our race, where the effects of such a system are exhibited on a considerable scale. The Members of the Society of Friends were, at one time, supposed to be of all others the least subject to insanity; but the very reverse is the case; being, from the limited nature of their sect, driven to frequent intermarriages, and to a consequent deterioration of the most active part of the human frame—the brain. It is for the same reason, that almost every royal family contains a large proportion of idiots, or, at the best, persons of very weak intellect; and, such will continue to occur, till legislators fall on some plan of striking at the groundwork of the mischief. If the laws of God and man define to us so clearly the evils of intermarrying with relatives; and if, as all animals are constructed on one grand plan, we admit the proximity of the sheep to the human race, it follows, that what is destructive, in this respect, to the one, is destructive to the other; and that we should seek, by a nearly similar, if not wider, range of rules, to obviate many of those diseases of which, when under our protection, they are so frequently the subjects.