KEEPING ONE COW. 119 



A WOMAN'S SUCCESS AND EXPEKIENCE. 



BY MRS. MAKT L. TAYLOR, NORTH VERNON, INDIANA. 



, My success in keeping the family cow is mainly due to the 

 superior sense of that animal in coming into being in a latitude 

 where a cow can live with as little care and protection, and where 

 the face of unplowed and unharrowed nature furnishes as much 

 food for her as any other ; latitude thirty-nine. 



My cow is a scrub cost twenty dollars; had her calf on the 

 fourteenth of February, 1879, and we complimented the saint on 

 whose day she came by calling her Valentine. 



HOW WE MANAGED THE CALF. 



I put the calf in a pen made in the fence corner and covered 

 with a few old boards, and let the cow in to her every night first 

 taking from the cow what milk we needed for our family of four 

 persons. I left her with the calf all night, and in the morning 

 milked what the calf had left for me. This was not much after 

 the first two weeks, and after two more weeks I only wasted my 

 time at milking in the morning. I parted with the calf at three 

 months old for eight dollars, and laid this sum by as my capital to 

 draw against for the cow's winter keeping. 



My farm is half an acre in extent, and all of it, except the space 

 occupied by the cottage and a small garden, is lawn, and is well s^t 

 in Blue-grass, with a sprinkling of Orchard-grass. 



SUMMER MANAGEMENT. 



I sold my lawn mower and put a short rope around my cow's 

 horns. To this I fastened the chain of an old chain-pump. The 

 pump had served its day, and was now laid aside. This oU 

 pump-chain was about sixteen feet long, and through the end of 

 it I stuck an old iron garden stake into the ground, and staked 

 my cow out on the lawn. In the chain I put rings one yard apart, 

 and by running my garden stake through a ring nearer or farther 

 from the rope around the cow's horns, I could give her a larger 

 or smaller circle to graze on, and so let her eat very near to ever- 

 greens and other shrubbery without danger of having them in- 

 jured. She pulled up the stake several times at first, but the 

 remedy for this came of itself. In my desire to make her very 

 secure, I had tied the rope around her horns too tightly and made 

 her head sore. She ceased pulling, and though her head soon got 



