DUTCH METHODS. 25 



the long line of cows that occupy it, all apparently as smooth coated and as free 

 from filth or stain as in summer in the fields, you will perhaps think that such 

 is not their usual state; that they have been cleansed and groomed and the 

 white switches of their tails washed and combed for some special event. Go 

 tomorrow, or any other day, and you find them in the same condition. You 

 will find them yielding their milk almost as liberally as when in the fields. 

 They have had no drying-up season as cows in this country have in early winter. 



Before dropping another calf each one will have a few weeks' respite from 

 giving milk, then she will enter again with renewed impulse on the chief object 

 of her existence. What wonder that generations of such people should have 

 produced a dairy cow that can be profitably kept even in the winter and in so 

 doing adding to her owner's wealth through every season of her existence ! 



During the winter they are fed on hay and oil cake. The oil cake ration is 

 usually from one to four pounds a day. To those that may be milking heavily 

 or are reduced in strength from some other cause, the refuse skim milk is usually 

 fed. The oil cake is the ordinary commercial cake produced from the various 

 seeds after the expression of their oils; that from linseed is the chief, much of 

 which is imported from America. As it comes into Holland it is hard and 

 difficult to be broken, but it is there re-ground and re-pressed into much softer 

 and smaller cakes, easily broken in the hand, and thus fed to the cows. The 

 refuse of bakeries is also made into cakes and fed in this way. Cotton seed 

 meal is slowly coming into use. Indian corn meal is sometimes fed in the 

 scarcity of other food, but is not generally regarded with favor. 



In the quality of their hay lies much of the secret of their success in main- 

 taining a liberal flow of milk through the winter months. As it is taken from 

 the mow it appears much like American rowen, very much bleached in curing. 

 And it does not strike an observer from this country as being very nutritive or 

 palatable. Before the cows every blade is eaten and they always seem desirous 

 for more. There is no waste for bedding. While the climate of Holland is so cold 

 that it would not mature the earliest variety of Indian corn, yet it is so tem- 

 pered by the sea that grass grows throughout nine months of the year. These 

 dairymen usually pasture their fields one season and mow them the next, and 

 so alternate from year to year. The sod thus becomes exceedingly dense. The 

 grass for mowing is never allowed to mature or blossom or even head. The 

 first cutting is taken from the fields in May or early in June. A second cutting 

 is taken in August or the fore part of September, and a third in October or 

 November. 



When the mowing begins it proceeds without interruption until the cutting 

 for that period is completed. The mowers do not stop as in America because of 

 cloudy or rainy weather, or to assist in gathering. On a farm of ordinary size, 

 keeping from twenty to forty cows, two mowers are usually employed during 

 the haying, who camp out in the meadows and furnish their own implements 

 and board. Mowing machines have not come into general use, the majority of 

 farmers thinking it less expensive to have their grass cut by hand, that it is cut 

 more closely, and the sod less injured during the slow process. When partially 

 dry the hay is put up in small cocks. As the curing goes on two or more of 

 these cocks are put together. Often they are again redoubled and this process 

 repeated until the hay is sufficiently dried for the mow. These cocks frequently 

 become saturated with rain and have to be spread and re-spread to dry. In 

 consequence the hay does not reach the mow in the farmhouse until it is quite 

 thoroughly bleached and a large share of its fragrance gone. 



All the members of the family join in the gathering. It is this scene in the 

 hay field on which poets and painters love to dwell. The wife and daughters 

 raking the hay, the younger children on the loaded wains, the husband and sons 

 lifting the heavy forkfuls. It is indeed a scene of much rural enjoyment. There 

 is little of that burning heat in the climate that characterizes haying time in 

 America. The air is pure and invigorating, the fields are fragrant, and there is 

 a peculiar happiness in all countries and among all people in the gathering of 

 the harvest. 



The first and second cuttings are thus cured and stowed in the mow. The 

 last cutting is drawn to the farmhouse and fed without curing, as the cows are 

 all ready there in the stables for the winter. This lasts for several weeks during 

 which they are virtually soiled. This is the only period in which they receive 

 any soiling crops. As this decreases dry hay from the mow and oil cake take 

 its place as we have described. There is no sudden change from green to dry 



