THE DAIRY QUESTION — THE COMING STYLE. 247 



cultivated fieldis for cured fodder, but also in the meadow 

 as permanent pasture ; and the number of these food-sup- 

 pliers is constantly on the increase. 



Those who make the above sweeping assertions are either 

 wofully ignorant or maliciously slanderous toward a great 

 State. 



No family who owns an acre or two of moderately-good 

 land has any excuse for not having an abundance of milk 

 and butter even in much maligned Florida, as we shall see 

 by and by. 



A well-fed cow is one of the best friends a housekeeper 

 can have, and no better investment could be found for the 

 amount of money that will buy and keep one of these val- 

 uable animals, for whose product there is a demand every 

 hour of the day. Especially is this the case in the new 

 Florida home, Avhere more often than not only the plain- 

 est and most simple kinds of food can be procured, and 

 where the milk, butter, and cheese furnished by the hum- 

 ble cow are a mine of wealth to the perplexed wife and 

 mother, in whose ears the daily cry of ' ' What shall we 

 eat?" is ever ringing. 



Now, as we have seen, the native Florida cow gives but 

 little milk when, as is usually the case, she is turned out 

 during the day to pick up her own living as best she may. 

 And so the lack in individuals is made up in numbers, and 

 thus from four or five cows enough milk is procured to 

 yield the family an ample supply. 



If we stop to think about it we will see a reason sufficient 

 in itself to account for the small yield of milk from each 

 cow, even apart from its degenerate state and the compar- 

 atively small amount of food it obtains ; and this is the 

 excessive amount of exercise it is compelled to take all 

 day, and every day, to get even this modicum of "greens." 



Whence came the popular phrase, *'fat as an alderman," 



