COW-PASTUKBS AND COW-PATHS 47 



dairy ideas of a half century ago were certainly 

 queer to say the least. Practically all dairy prod- 

 ucts were made from grass in summer, and the 

 bam was frankly regarded as a sort of cold-storage 

 proposition for the purpose of keeping cows alive 

 until summer came again and green grass in the 

 fields should enable them to give milk. Of course, 

 there were even then occasional dairymen — men 

 in advance of their time — who were wise and 

 liberal feeders, but as a whole they seem to have 

 ■ had grave doubts that a cow could really yield 

 milk when there was snow on the ground. Under 

 this idea there were long months when men had a 

 bam full of cows but no milk, and a generation 

 ago one still spoke of a "coffee cow," meaning 

 thereby a cow kept "farrow" and fed with unusual 

 care in order that she might supply a scant ration 

 of milk for this dairyman's family during the win- 

 ter months. All this was a part of the old era 

 when barns were frigid and windy structures, 

 stables cheerless dungeons and when there were no 

 sUos and grain was deemed too valuable to be fed 

 to cows. She was expected to receive somewhat 

 less than a maintenance ration of corn-stalks and 

 over-ripe hay and to become progressively more 

 lean and hungry as the slow winter dragged itself 

 along. She was expected to be "spring poor," and 

 no one regarded it as either a joke or a reproach 

 to her owner. This is no exaggeration of what 

 might be called typical dairying within the mem- 



