COW KIND. 



mal seems but little regardful of the quality of its 

 food, provided it be supplied in sufficient abun- 

 dance ; it makes no particular distinctions in the 

 choice of its herbage, but indiscriminately and 

 hastily devours the proper quantity. For this 

 reason, in our pastures, where the grass is rather 

 high than succulent, more flourishing than nutri- 

 tious, the cow thrives admirably; and there is 

 no part of Europe where the tame animal grows 

 larger, yields more milk, and more readily fattens, 

 than with us. 



Our pastures supply them with abundance, and 

 they in return enrich the pasture ; for, of all ani- 

 mals, the cow seems to give back more than it 

 takes from the soil. The horse and the sheep are 

 known, in a course of years, to impoverish the 

 ground. The land where they have fed becomes 

 weedy, and the vegetables coarse and unpalat- 

 able: on the contrary, the pasture where the 

 cow has been bred, acquires a finer, softer sur- 

 face, and becomes every year more beautiful and 

 even. The reason is, that the horse being fur- 

 nished with fore-teeth in the upper jaw, nips the 

 grass closely, and, therefore, only chooses that 

 which is the most delicate and tender ; the sheep 

 also, though with respect to its teeth formed 

 like the cow, only bites the most succulent parts 

 of the herbage : these animals, therefore, leave 

 all the high weeds standing ; and while they cut 

 the finer grass too closely, suffer the ranker herb- 

 age to vegetate and overrun the pasture. But it 

 is otherwise with the cow ; as its teeth cannot 

 come so close to the ground as those of the horse, 



