48 BRITISH DAIRYING. 



I knew a man once who was notorious for starving his cattle 

 and neglecting his land, though he was the owner of both. If he 

 ever bought corn for the cattle or fertilisers for the land, he did 

 so by stealth, for nobody heard of it. His cattle were so lean 

 and weak in the winter that they could hardly get up without 

 help, and sometimes couldn't with it ; his land got no help, and 

 it starved his cattle in summer; his meadows threw up a scanty 

 crop that was deficient in nutriment, and so forth. Well, this 

 man never prospered, never flourished, and he died as he had 

 lived, in something very like poverty, which might just as well 

 have been turned into plenty. 



Lastly, there is the question of gentleness and kindness in 

 the treatment of cows. There are, indeed, few cows who are 

 not susceptible to treatment of this sort : they become gentler 

 themselves in response to it, and yield more milk. Cottagers' 

 cows generally do better for their owners because they are com- 

 monly tended by women, and women, as a rule, are gentler and 

 kinder than men. A man who kissed his cow has been often 

 cited, and the Austrian hussar kisses his horse ! These kisses 

 matter but little in themselves, but they are outward and visible 

 signs of inward and spiritual kindness and gentleness : these it 

 is that are so beneficent in the treatment of cattle. 



