ABSTRACT
Although the vegetable products of the farm are entitled to the first place in any book on agriculture by right of tradition, the interests involved in the breeding and maintenance of livestock in Great Britain are in reality of more practical importance. After cattle and sheep, the next most important place must be given to swine, which must not be omitted or relegated to an unimportant place among livestock of the farm. At the first, and at the last of these, large numbers of cattle and sheep change hands, the former being held once a week, the latter, perhaps, only once a year. Besides the farmers and the butchers, who form the great bulk of the sellers and buyers of fat stock, there are cattle dealers, great and small, and men who buy and sell on commission. Large numbers of men deal extensively in cattle, combine with that trade the business of farming, or of fattening cattle, or other occupations.
