Identifier: corncattleproduc00rich (find matches)
Title: The corn and cattle producing districts of France
Year: 1878 (1870s)
Authors: Richardson, George Gibson, 1816-1879
Subjects: Agriculture
Publisher: London New York : Cassell
Contributing Library: Boston Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Public Library

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secondary importance. Froma strange fancy on the part of the breeders the donkey-mares are kept in a miserably poor condition, such beingthought most conducive to the production of colt-foals.For a month before a foal is dropped the mare is neverleft alone, one of the family is by her side day andnight. If a colt comes he is petted by every inhabitantof the farm; the owner never quits him for a month,he guides him to his natural nourishment, feeds himwith meal and milk if disposed to lie do^^Ti, and covershim with a woollen sheet when sleeping. At tenmonths old he is weaned, and from that moment he neverleaves his box until sold. At the age of fifteen or eighteenmonths he is ready for sale to the keepers of depotsfor sires : an operation so serious that it is seldom con-cluded under twenty-four hours, sometimes double thattime is occupied. Frequent examinations of the animals,alternating with copious meals, and still more copiousdrinks, long discussions as to his qualities and price,
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\ / I 1 ). poiTOU. 269 do end at last, and when the buyer is satisfied as to Jackass.the qualities, and the seller agrees to the price, whichwill run from £120 for a common specimen up toover £300 for a really fine one, the subject of somuch discussion is transferred to the possession ofhis new owner. His noble brow decorated with ribbonsand crowned with laurels, he is placed in a cart coveredwith an awniug, and makes his triumphal entry into hisnew domain, having before him a life which will extendto twenty-five or thirty years, during the whole of whichhe will not walk as many miles. Kept in a closestable, standing in filth, and never groomed, he becomesreally incapable of walking, is attacked by skinaftections and by chronic disease of the feet; he doesnot seem, however, to transmit any of these complaintsto his ofispring. As may be supposed, the Poitou ass is a very differentanimal from the English donkey. In height he standsfrom 13 hands 3 inches to 14 hands 3 inches. Hishead i

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