be increased in quantity and quality; for these objects, his milk can be
thickened with flour or meal, and small pieces of softened oil-cake are
to be slipped into his mouth after sucking, that they may dissolve
there, till he grows familiar with, and to like the taste, when it may
be softened and scraped down into his milk-and-water. After a time,
sliced turnips softened by steam are to be given to him in tolerable
quantities; then succulent grasses; and finally, hay may be added to the
others. Some farmers, desirous of rendering their calves fat for the
butcher in as short a time as possible, forget both the natural weakness
of the digestive powers, and the contracted volume of the stomach, and
allow the animals either to suck _ad libitum_, or give them, if brought
up at the pail or by hand, a larger quantity of milk than they can
digest. The idea of overloading the stomach never suggests itself to
their minds. They suppose that the more food the young creature
consumes, the sooner it will be fat, and they allow it no exercise
whatever, for fear it should denude its very bones of their flesh. Under
such circumstances, the stomach soon becomes deranged; its functions are
no longer capable of acting; the milk, subjected to the acid of the
stomach, coagulates, and forms a hardened mass of curd, when the muscles
become affected with spasms, and death frequently ensues.