154 HOW TO LIVE IN THE COUNTRY 



a bowl of sour milk or clabber; of Dutch cheese or 

 cottage cheese, and all other cheese; and knowing 

 that to young and old, to sick or well, the cow minis- 

 ters more than do all other creatures. There is a 

 lot of poetry as well as prose associated with the lit- 

 tle Jersey, and she helps to make the small family 

 a real family and a happy one. But better yet I like 

 the old-fashioned cow the quiet, clean, red old 

 Mohawk Durham. Gentle as a lamb, you could 

 milk her in the open field or ride her to pasture. 



A Jersey is a baby always, and don't forget it 

 when you buy the family cow. She will need special 

 nursing and rather better care than the ordinary fam- 

 ily will give. An Ayrshire is Scotch to the backbone, 

 and she will have her Highland fling in the pasture 

 and sometimes in the stables. She will give a pailful 

 of milk every time, and twelve pounds of butter a 

 week on decent feed; but give me the cow of quiet 

 habits, hardy, kindly, steady in her milk flow for 

 nine months of the year and easily kept, without 

 studying balanced rations in bureau bulletins. 



To keep a cow on the old style of farming re- 

 quired about ten acres, for in a pasture of three or 

 four acres she would tramp and foul two-thirds of 

 her feed, while by the modern system of stabling 

 and feeding with cut feed two acres are abundant. 

 If I had just a three-acre lot, I would put exactly 

 two acres to berries and vegetables ; then put a fringe 

 of apple trees, with pears and plums and cherries, 

 around the whole of it, saving half an acre for si- 



