The Cow 313 



favorite feeding-places. The feeding-place 

 is commonly a bare rock. The muskrat sits 

 up on it, with a bit of rush or young corn 

 stalk between his paws, peels and eats it, 

 much as a child peels and eats a roasted sweet 

 potato. 



Still Cattle do not miss the rushes — there 

 is so very much else. White Oaks cattle 

 never ran out, except in the early spring. 

 Trampling ruins the thickest and best estab- 

 lished sward if the ground underneath is like 

 a wet sponge. It is a waste, withal danger- 

 ous, to graze clover until the early heads are 

 well in blossom. That usually comes to 

 pass between the first and the middle of May. 

 Even then it is unsafe to turn cattle upon it 

 until the dew is well off, or indeed for longer 

 than an hour of grazing, if they are just off 

 dry feed, hence sharp set for green. 



Cattle, like sheep, like all the ruminants 

 in fact, have no teeth in the front of the 

 upper jaw. They crop and browse by press- 

 ing grass and buds against their sharp cutting 

 lower teeth, with the upper lip and the tongue. 

 The cropping is then rolled into morsels — 

 cuds — and swallowed without chewing. 

 The cuds go down into an outer stomach, 

 whence they are raised to be chewed at 

 leisure. Clover too young, too damp, or 

 too greedily swallowed, is apt to ferment and 



