LEAF AND TENDRIL 



Now is not that reasoning just as good as much 

 of the reasoning that the public indulges in upon 

 these subjects? Or, take the wit of the old cow 

 herself. Yonder is a very steep hillside, the high, 

 abrupt bank of an old river terrace. Along this 

 bank the cattle have made a series of parallel paths, 

 level as the top of the terrace itself. The paths, I 

 should think, are about four feet apart, just far 

 enough so that the cow walking along one of them 

 can graze at her ease over all the strip of ground 

 that lies between it and the next path. When she 

 comes to the end, she steps up into the path above 

 and repeats the process, and so on till the whole 

 side of the terrace has been grazed over. Does not 

 this show that the cow is very level-headed, that 

 she can meet a difficult problem and solve it as 

 rationally as you or I? Without the paths, how 

 awkward and difficult the grazing would be ! Now 

 it is done easily because it is done from level 

 paths ; it is done thoroughly because it is done sys- 

 tematically. If you or I were going to search that 

 hillside over daily, should not we adopt similar or 

 identical tactics? 



In Idaho I saw that the grazing sheep had ter- 

 raced the grassy mountain-sides in the same way. 

 Their level paths were visible from afar. How 

 inevitable and free from calculation it all is ! The 

 grazing cattle take the easiest way, and this way is 

 horizontally along the face of the hill. To take the 

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