KEEPING ONE COW. 121 



had them, placed against poles set on crotches around the place 

 where the cow was sheltered during the winter. The stalks were 

 leaned against the poles from both sides, and made a sloping roof 

 both ways, so as to shed snow and rain. From these poles I gave 

 the cowan armful of this corn and fodder night and morning, and 

 though the snow did sometimes lodge on them, and make my 

 mittens cold, I could generally find a spot on one side or the other 

 that was clear of snow. This work of putting up the fodder for 

 winter use cost about two dollars. 



My cow had been used to " slops " and meal, and did not take 

 kindly to whole corn at first. I was advised to husk the corn, and 

 get it ground; but by feeding her a few small or broken, or soft 

 ears from my hand, she soon became eager for it, and has learned 

 to grind it as well as the mill, and at less cost of going to and 

 from, to say nothing of the toll. But even if she was not as good 

 a corn crusher as the mill-stones, there would be no loss, for my 

 fowls follow her faithfully, and pick up every broken grain that 

 is dropped ; so the miller's toll that I save keeps me in chickens 

 and eggs. Now that the cow had come to eat whole corn, I was 

 told that she would muss over the fodder, hunting for the nubbins, 

 and waste the stalks ; but by sprinkling a little brine on the stalks 

 when she became dainty, I found I could make her eat them as 

 closely as was desirable. 



A WINTER SHELTER. 



I had no stable. The cow stood out in all the storms until late 

 in December. The hair grew very thick, almost like a buffalo 

 robe, and she did not seem to mind the cold. There was an old 

 chicken house on the place, standing on posts about five feet high. 

 It was in a hollow, and was sheltered by evergreens on the north 

 and west. As I pulled up her stake one night in a drizzle to let 

 her go under the tree where I milked her, she started on the gallop 

 for this house, and from that time it was her winter couch. There 

 I milked and fed her. I tied the chain around one of the corner 

 posts, so as to leave her the choice of the shelter of the building 

 or of exposure to the storm at her discretion, and I must say that 

 she often surprised me by seeming as fond as a child of standing 

 out in the rain. Under this coop I fed her fodder ; the stalks she 

 left, littered down her bed, and I had more manure in the spring 

 than I had ever had before. A boy spread it from a wheelbarrow 

 at twenty-five cents a day. The spring before I paid fifty cents a 

 load for the manure, and two dollars and fifty cents a day for the 

 hauling. 

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