157After birth all care is transferred to the calves; and straightaway they brand on them marks and the names of their stock, and which they prefer to rear for breeding, or keep sacred for the altars, or for breaking the ground and turning over the plain rough with broken clods. 162The rest of the herd grazes over the green grass: but those you will train for the pursuits and uses of the farm, encourage while still calves, and set out on the path of taming while their young spirits are docile, while their age is pliant. 166And first fasten loose collars of slender osier round their necks; 167then, when their free necks have grown used to servitude, join matched bullocks, fitted together by the very collars, and make them keep step; 170and now let empty wheels often be drawn by them over the ground and mark their tracks on the surface of the dust; 172afterwards let the beech axle creak, straining under a heavy load, and a bronze pole draw the coupled wheels.
174Meanwhile for the unbroken young you will pluck by hand not only grass and the meagre leaves of willows and marsh sedge, but sown corn; 176nor will the cows that have calved fill snowy milk-pails for you, as in our fathers' day, but spend their whole udders on their sweet offspring.