The Care of Stock. 265 



and they were always fed to a minute and watered also. It is a 

 fact that I could go through there some ten minutes before feed- 

 ing time with a pail of grain and they would none of them get 

 up. Ten minutes later they would all get up. I have done this 

 before witnesses who couldn't believe it possible until they had 

 seen it. But one had to be very careful about letting them see a 

 stranger, or they might all jump up, anyway. Well, when Mr. 

 Chapman took those cattle home he was exceedingly proud of them. 

 And well he might be. No show stock were ever curried and 

 handled with more care. By the time they got to town to be 

 weighed they began to feel their oats and freedom and they were 

 beautiful to look at with their perfect health and spirits. Mr. 

 Chapman did not want to take them home until grass came, but 

 the bargain was for the first of April, and my hay was getting low 

 and I wanted to get at my spring work. For months I had been 

 tied up with those steers and my other stock, never once leaving 

 them for more than an hour or two by day. The season was 

 backward and Mr. Chapman was obliged to put them in the barn 

 and feed for a month or more, and I heard through others (not a 

 word to me, you may know) that he said he made a terrible 

 blunder buying them so early; that they acted like spoiled 

 babies ; nothing was good enough for them, and they actually lost 

 flesh till grass came, although they were gaining about a thousand 

 pounds a month, thirteen of them, when he took them away. 

 Now, this is not told with any desire to brag at all, but rather to 

 give a hint to my young readers in particular of the very 

 foundation of success with stock. Alas, how few are treated 

 in this way ! Do you say one cannot afford to take so much 

 pains ? He cannot afford to take less, and I would not want to if 

 I could. We should feel in duty bound to make our animals as 

 comfortable as our means will permit. I do not know when I 

 have enjoyed anything more than a remark of my neighbor, 

 Edward McCauley, when he was looking at my horses in their 

 box-stalls in my new barn one cold, stormy day : " Why, Terry, 

 your horses are as comfortable in here as you are in your new 

 home." Thank God, yes! and do they not deserve it at my 

 hands ? Faithful, tireless servants, helping us to get our comfort- 

 able home and never having once served us a single mean trick. 

 But aside from this righteous view of the matter, one cannot afford 

 to have any stock kept for money-making any other way than 

 comfortable and contented. Breed is a good deal, but so is feed 

 and care. Would it startle you if I said that few cows in Ohio 

 know what it is to have enough to eat ? But it is true. Think. 

 The great mass are turned out to pasture. Feed may be flush 

 for a month or so and they half starve during other dry, hot 

 months ; at any rate, they do not get half as much* to eat as they 

 did in the best of the season, and of course they must cut down 

 on their milk. How many cows can you think of that are fed 



