78 My Little Farm 



mere asset of the farm. She is my friend, quietly 

 defying a crowd of enemies ; my bank, assuring a 

 high rate on deposits and demanding none on 

 overdrafts ; my steward, locking up my property 

 in her own reproductive chambers ; my detective, 

 indicating losses by her condition and by the very 

 look of her eye. In return, she enjoys all the 

 kindness and care that I can afford, and with these 

 advantages, she goes forward in her career, realising 

 higher and higher growth in her capacity and 

 character from generation to generation ; while my 

 fellow man, deprived by " religion " of the cow's 

 liberty in self development, either nurses his 

 atrophy at home or seeks relief from it in emigra- 

 tion, escaping from the richest and the loveliest 

 land in the world. The Irish prosper abroad 

 because they are forced to act up to the honesty 

 of those with whom they live and work. 



It is clear that I could, with equal ease and more 

 delight, do as much for men as I can for cows, but 

 that would require the men to begin, like the 

 cows, in possession of their faculties, as free to 

 think as the cows are to feed, and not organised 

 in a damnation of dementia directed at their own 

 expense against the eternal economy of their 

 better bein?. 



