A COW'S PARADISE. 11 



their original home, continuously following their original pursuits. Their 

 farm houses are fashioned after the same general model ; such a farm house 

 resembles a great castle and is still surrounded by a broad deep ditch, impass- 

 able, except by some artificial means. Over this are thrown one or more 

 bridges, guarded by strong gates and heavy bolts. The immense roof of this 

 farm house covers everything that requires protection. Here the cattle find 

 shelter during the long and rigorous winter months. Here they are fed and 

 watched for months without being turned from the door. Here "the family are 

 also sheltered, sometimes with only a single partition between the cattle stalls 

 and the kitchen. Everything is kept with a degree of neatness marvelous to 

 those not accustomed to such system. 



The cattle become the pets of the household. At the opening of spring, when 

 the grass is sufficiently grown, they are taken to the fields and cared for in the 

 most quiet manner. They are never worried by dogs and are required to move 

 about only to gather their food. The grasses upon which they feed are very 

 rich and luxuriant. On the first appearance of winter they are returned to the 

 stable and the simple round of the year is completed. This round is repeated 

 year after year until they are six or seven years of age, when they are driven to 

 the shambles. Their object is always to produce as much milk and beef as pos- 

 sible from the same animal. With this two-fold object in view, selection, 

 breeding and feeding have been continued for ages by a whole race of farmers. 

 They have had few men of remarkable genius that have risen far above their 

 fellows in the work of improvement, but each breeder has contributed his share 

 without special recognition. They have never tolerated in-and-in breeding, 

 and have never produced (distinct) families of marked superiority, although dif- 

 ferences in soil in different localities have produced different classes, varying in 

 size and slightly in other characteristics. On the richest soils the finest cattle 

 are produced. 



The Hollanders have been specialists, in fact, for many generations. A 

 visitor among them in the summer time is struck by the number of cattle that 

 occupy their fields. Herds of cows are on every hand. The land seems wholly 

 given up to them. 



There is no fruit growing, very little grain raising, and nothing similar to 

 what they call mixed husbandry. The care of cows, the gathering of food for 

 them, the manufacture and disposal of their products, occupy the attention of 

 the people to an extent that it is difficult to comprehend by one who has not 

 been among them. These dairy men are mostly tenant farmers, the fee simple 

 of the soil, as in England and many other parts of Europe long under the 

 ancient feudal system, is in the hands of large land holders, who, as a rule, do 

 not reside among them. 



To Americans the rents paid by these dairymen seem enormous. Upon 

 the best lands an annual rent of from fifteen to twenty dollars per acre is paid. 

 The soil is fertile, yet it is no better than the superior dairy land of America. 

 Their abilities to pay such rents depend largely upon the economy and skill 

 with which they handle their herds and the character of the cattle. 



A lady traveler, Eleanor H. Patterson, recently returned from Holland, 

 writes of it as a cow's paradise. She says: "Washed, combed, groomed, petted 

 and luxuriantly stabled in winter, like the finest of our race horses, and put to 

 graze in flowery, well- watered green fields in summer, the cows of Holland can 

 envy no animal the world over. 



"The two lions represented upon the heraldic shield of the Netherlands 

 might well be replaced by two great black and white Holstein-Friesian cows, 

 for the masses of the people worship cows. Cows they watch sometimes with 

 more care than they give their own children, cows they nurse through sick- 

 ness, cows they save their money to buy, and of cows they talk while awake 

 and dream while asleep ! 



"Children are brought up with the parental reverence for cows, and no 

 member of the human family is thought too good to sleep under the same roof 

 with the beloved kine. The traveler landing in Holland during the springtime 

 will see vast herds of fine cattle in every stretch of green meadows, and green 

 meadows are everywhere in this fiat and almost treeless country. Every 

 shadeless field is defined by a stream of pure water flowing between trim, 

 flowery banks, which serve instead of fences to keep the cattle within bounds. 



"A grotesque sight to people from countries where cows are not of the first 

 importance is the spectacle of the most delicate and valuable cows enveloped 



