viii PREFACE 



things were still within the memory of him who 

 writes, nor is he old. And it is confidently hoped 

 that this attempt will have rery direct and prac- 

 tical value to the present-day dairyman, for he 

 cannot expect his best success unless he has a real 

 regard for his cow and likes to read about her. 



Far m butter-and-cheese-makin g are rapidly go- 

 JLng the way of the f arm spinning-wheel and the 

 looni . Hor ace Bushnell , Connecticut preacher and 

 author, speaking at a town centennial in the 

 middle of the last century and looking back on the 

 memory of his youth and the domestic manufac- 

 tuj£a.of that time, lingeringly and lovingly called 

 it the " Grolden Age of Hom espun." The corre - 

 sponding age of daiKid ag-is about to go forever, and 

 in some respects the world will be the poore r 

 thereb y ; but this at least remains : That we men 

 who would farm not only for to-day or to-morrow 

 but for the generations yet unborn must have the 

 animal as part of the farm scheme. Agricultural 

 content and permanent prosperity are typified best 

 not by a plow on a field arable, but by flocks and 

 herds winding over green pastures. 



So this little volum e is not an attempt to reduce 

 cow-keeping to cold demonstrations of chemistry 

 and physiology and bacteriology — and cash — ^but 

 rather to strike the pers onal not e_and to sp eak of 

 ^airyiog on one old _hill farm and to put int o lan- 

 gua^ge~a little of the glow and the glam our of real 

 farm lif^. Jabbd van Wagenbn, jEr 



