158 THE TIM BUNKEK PAPEKS. 



It is not thought contagious, and yet it is wonderful, how 

 it goes through a whole herd, and spreads from farm to 

 farm. Yet nobody is alarmed, because he is familiar with 

 the disease, and knows the remedy is of easy application. 



Now, Mr. Editor, I want to have my say on this subject, 

 and you musn t put the stopper on till I have it out. You 

 see, now is the time to prevent this disease. If you neg 

 lect cattle till they get down in the yard, like Jake Frink s 

 cow, it is too late, or if it isn t too late, it will cost all 

 they are worth to get them up into good flesh again. 

 You see, folks are greatly mistaken about what constitutes 

 the value of an ox or cow. I take it, it isn t the breath 

 of life in the carcass that makes a cow or ox worth having. 

 But this seems to be the popular notion, that a cow is a 

 cow, whether she have five hundred pounds of good whole 

 some flesh between her skin and bones, or the skin and 

 bones have come together pretty much like a collapsed 

 steam boiler. Men calling themselves farmers, and living 

 in a farming community like Hookertown, seem to think 

 that a poor, half-starved cow in the spring is in just as 

 good condition to give milk, and make butter and cheese, 

 as one well fed. They think all the hay and meal they 

 can cheat their cattle out of in the winter, is so much clear 

 gain. They keep animals out of doors, at the stack-yard, 

 through all this cold, stormy weather, that are expected to 

 bring calves next April. They lie upon the frozen earth, 

 and often upon the snow, with the thermometer at zero or 

 below. They are fed upon corn-stalks, and often upon 

 poor hay, without meal or roots. Now I am not particu 

 larly savage in my disposition, but I should like to have 

 these improvident stock owners spend just one night, at 

 the stack-yard, with their poor shivering cattle. I rather 

 guess they would build barns or sheds, and make them 

 comfortable. 



A cow kept in this way, comes out in the spring in poor 

 flesh, too weak to bear a good calf, or to make good veal, 



