LARGE COUNTRY VILLAS. 259 



from the spot, because no kind of animal can live where there are no vegeta- 

 bles to support it. 



SuBSECT. IV. — General observations on laying out, planting, and managing 

 large Country Villas. 



t353. Large country villas differ from those we have called small country 

 villas, in having a paddock and dairy ; and from country mansions, in not 

 havi(!g a park and farm. The extent of these large villa residences may vary 

 from four acres (three being, in most situations, the least quantity that will 

 serve for keeping a cow, and one the least that will suffice for a suitable house, 

 pleasure-ground, and kitchen-garden) to eight or ten acres, and upwards. 

 The charatteristics of this kind of residence being the paddock and dairy, we 

 shall confine our introductory observations chiefly to them. 



.354. The dairy. — A cow, to a person with a family, is one of the principal 

 sources of comfort derivable from a country residence. A cow, it is true, may 

 be kept in town as well as in the country, and may occupy a stall in a 

 stable, in the same manner as a horse ; hay and straw being purchased for 

 feeding and littering the one as well as the other. The cow, however, not 

 being worked in the saddle, or in harness, like the horse, and not having 

 either a large yard or a field to take exercise in, soon suffers in her health, 

 and must, in that state, produce unwholesome milk. It is true there are 

 some exceptions, where cows kept in gentlemen's stables in the metropolis 

 are regularly exercised by driving them to some public park, where the pas- 

 turage is let out (such as Hyde Park, or the Regent's Park), and bringing 

 them back again after they have remained there an hour or two ; but this 

 mode, besides being expensive, is too troublesome ever to become general ; 

 not to mention the injury which the cow sustains in being driven through 

 crowded streets. Notwithstanding the evils attending want of exercise, it is 

 a fact, though not generally known, that cows in some of the London dairies 

 are kept stall-fed, and so treated as to give milk for two years in succession, 

 without having a second calf. There are instances of such cows never having 

 been once untied, from the day they were put up, till the day, two years after- 

 wards, when they were sold to be fattened for the butcher. The confined 

 places (frequently dark cellars) in which cows are lodged, and the state of 

 filth from want of litter and drainage, and of closeness Irom want of ventila- 

 tion, in which they are kept in the crowded parts of the metropolis, such as 

 St. Giles's, Saffron Hill, Liquorpond Street, &c., are disgusting in idea; and, 

 in reality, must be highly injurious to the health of those who use the milk 

 as an article of food. Even the milk from cows kept a year or two without 

 exercise, however cleanly and suitable the treatment may be for their condi- 

 tion, cannot, we should imagine, be so wholesome as that produced by cows 

 that have abundance of exercise and air. Hence it is that the better-informed 

 inhabitants of the metropolis, and all the higher classes, have their milk from 

 suburban establishments to which grass fields are attached ; and where the 

 cows, though highly fed in the house, are yet turned out into these fields 

 for a certain portion of every day throughout the year, except when the 

 weather is of an extraordinary degree of severity. 



355. The cow-house shmdd be of ample size, with complete drainage and 

 thorough ventilation ; and the cow should be carefully cleaned every day 

 with a currycomb and brush, in the same manner as a horse. When there is 



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