142 RURAL DENMARK 



it is true that Nature generally arranges that this 

 event should happen when the days are lengthening 

 and the sun is gathering power. 



On the following day I visited another of Mr. Tes- 

 dorpfs cow-byres. It stands near to his house, and 

 compared to it that which I had already seen was 

 a thing of no account. 



Let the agricultural reader imagine a huge place 

 containing no less than 400 cows, to say nothing of 

 thirty or forty young bulls worth about 1000 kroner 

 (^55) each. To a poor 500-acre farmer like myself 

 the sight was really overwhelming. I felt like the 

 Queen of Sheba after she had inspected the wonders 

 of Solomon's establishment. " There was no more 

 spirit " in me ! 



Here the cows stood, or rather lay, in endless ranks, 

 so endless that the eye grew weary of contemplating 

 them. Here were milking-machines and some of 

 the forty milkmaids, Swedish and Finn of race, who 

 attend upon them. Here, too, were men shaving 

 their tails, legs, and flanks with horse-clippers in order 

 to comply with the regulations of Mr. Busck. Here 

 were the ingenious feeding-troughs, the huge manure 

 tank, the arrangements for carrying food and water, 

 and so forth, without end. It was colossal ; it was 

 an agricultural revelation ! Never in my long and 

 varied experience have I seen a farm to equal that of 

 the Kammerherre Tesdorpf in the island of Falster. 

 And, be it remembered, this is no fancy place run as 

 a whim by a millionaire, and bearing as much resem- 

 blance to a common farm as does one of Watteau's 

 piping and beribboned shepherds to the man who 

 tends our sheep ; it is a business establishment re- 

 turning splendid profits. Why cannot some of our 



