V.J KEEPING COWS. 79 



which is a thing of the very first importance, they 

 will all learn, from their infancy, to set a just value 

 upon dumb animals, and will grow up in the habit 

 oi treating them with gentleness and feeding them 

 with care. To those who have not been brought up 

 in the midst of rural affairs, it is hardly possible to 

 give an adequate idea of the importance of this part 

 of education. I should be very loth to intrust ihe 

 care of my horses, cattle, sheep, or pigs, to any one 

 whose father never had cow or pig of his own. It is 

 a general complaint, that servants, and especially 

 farm-servants, are not so good as they used to be. 

 How should they ? They were formerly the sons 

 and daughters of small farmers ; they are now the 

 progeny of miserable property-less labourers. They 

 nave never seen an animal in which they had any 

 interest. They are careless by habit. This mon- 

 strous evil has arisen from causes which I have a 

 thousand times described ; and which causes must now 

 be speedily removed ; or, they will produce a disso- 

 lution of society, and give us a beginning afresh. 



135. The circumstances vary so much, that it is 

 impossible to lay down precise rules suited to all cases. 

 The cottage may be on the side of a forest or com- 

 mon ; it may be on the side of a lane or of a great road, 

 distant from town or village ; it may be on the skirts 

 of one of these latter : and then, again, the family may 

 be few or great in number, the children small or big, 

 according to all which circumstances, the extent and 

 application of the cow-food, and also the application 

 of the produce, will naturally be regulated. Under 

 some circumstances, half the above crop may be 

 enough ; especially where good commons are at hand. 

 Sometimes it may be the best way to sell the calf as 

 soon as calved; at others, to fat it; and, at others, if 

 you cannot sell it, which sometimes happens, to knock 

 it on the head as soon as calved ; for, where there is 

 a family of small children, the price of a calf of two 



latter had come more than a hundred miles in search of work ; and 

 here he was left to hunger still, and to be exposed to all sorts of ill* 

 because he could not milk. 



