120 KEEPING ONE COW. 



well, she has never since pulled up the stake ; so that my mistake 

 in fastening the rope, though it caused me self-reproaches at the 

 time, really proved a blessing in the end, for had she formed the 

 habit of pulling the stake up, I should have been forced to dis- 

 continue staking her out for fear of her destroying the shrubbery. 

 My cow seems to have a spits at shrubbery proportioned to its 

 beauty, and this spite seems intensified against such plants as she 

 cannot eat. A young cedar, for instance, she will never pass with- 

 out trying to demolish it with her horns. By means of the rings 

 in my chain, I could stake her so that she could eat up to the edge 

 of an evergreen without being able to touch it with her horns, and 

 I found the horns the only part that the shrubbery had to fear, for 

 she never yet has tried to destroy anything with her heels. 



My lawn, under the care of this new one-cow lawn-mower, be- 

 came the admiration and envy of the whole neighborhood. The 

 chickens followed her and scattered her droppings, so that the 

 lawn was always clean. I found it a great improvement on the 

 old hand lawn-mower, and much less labor, for the staking out 

 was far less trouble than running the mower. Besides, I sold the 

 old machine for almost half the price I paid for the cow. But, 

 strange as it seems to me now, I at first felt a little ashamed of my 

 new mower, for I got in the practice of staking the cow on the 

 front lawn at night, and moving her to the back lawn early in the 

 morning. 



She did her work so silently in the darkness that my neighbors 

 wondered much that in so well-kept a lawn they never heard the 

 click of the lawn-mower. 



We have no storms in the summer in this latitude from which 

 a cow needs any more protection than a tree affords. When it 

 rained I milked her under the shelter of a beech. 



In June, I rented a one-quarter acre lot for two dollars, and for 

 one dollar hired it plowed and laid off in furrows a little over two 

 feet apart. In these furrows I dropped corn, the grains two 1o 

 four inches apart. I hired it plowed once with a shovel plow. 

 This cost seventy-five cents. At the first frost, I had it cut and 

 put up in small shocks. A woman that does washing for me, and 

 occasionally chores about the house, did this at forty cents a day. 

 She was several days at it, but during the time performed other 

 work about the house. I think she spent about two solid days on 

 it. This corn-fodder, with few large ears on it, but a great many 

 nubbins, made my fodder and grain for the cow for the winter. 

 Later in the fall, when the corn-stalks were thoroughly cured, I 



