PHASES OF FARM LIFE 



shelters them from the storm. Or the fanner will 

 "fodder" his cows there, one of the most pictur- 

 esque scenes to be witnessed on the farm, twenty 

 or thirty or forty milchers filing along toward the 

 stack in the field, or clustered about it, waiting 

 the promised bite. In great, green flakes the hay 

 is rolled off, and distributed about in small heaps 

 upon the unspotted snow. After the cattle have 

 eaten, the birds snow buntings and red-polls 

 come and pick up the crumbs, the seeds of the 

 grasses and weeds. At night the fox and the owl 

 come for mice. 



What a beautiful path the cows make through 

 the snow to the stack or to the spring under the 

 hill! always more or less wayward, but broad 

 and firm, and carved and indented by a multitude 

 of rounded hoofs. 



In fact, the cow is the true pathfinder and path- 

 maker. She has the leisurely, deliberate movement 

 that insures an easy and a safe way. Follow her 

 trail through the woods, and you have the best, if 

 not the shortest, course. How she beats down the 

 brush and briers and wears away even the roots of 

 the trees! A herd of cows left to themselves fall 

 naturally into single file, and a hundred or more 

 hoofs are not long in smoothing and compacting 

 almost any surface. 



Indeed, all the ways and doings of cattle are 

 pleasant to look upon, whether grazing in the pas- 

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