Calves and Statesmen 101 



This year, I have raised sixteen calves on the 

 milk of three cows, not a larger quantity than that 

 on which four calves were starved behind my back 

 previously. During the whole year, I have 

 attended personally to every detail. During most 

 of the year, I have milked the cows, fed the calves, 

 washed their buckets, prepared their mixtures, and 

 made their bed with my own hands. I suppose 

 I will be hundreds of pounds out of pocket 

 in literary work left undone, a loss which the ample 

 profit on the calves cannot compensate ; but have 

 I not realised a practical demonstration of more 

 value to the Irish nation than anything I could 

 have done as a Member of Parliament or a pro- 

 fessor in an impossible language ? The little 

 farm is very largely the Irish nation, and the first 

 of her problems is to find out how human energy 

 can advance human life. 



In the sixteen calves, I had only one death, a 

 death too many, and an unnecessary one. While 

 writing an article for London, I entrusted the 

 " man " with part of the work, and found when 

 I had finished that he had given the animal an 

 effective poison for castor oil three times in four 

 days. It was the only instance of my putting any 

 essential part of the work out of my own hands in 

 the whole year, and that was the result. The 

 death occurred when the calf had been fed out of 

 milk, so that my calculation of the milk per calf 

 is not affected by it. Among the fifteen calves 

 that remain, there is not a bad one, and one of 

 them, by no means the most valuable, is sold for 



