THE BARN. 



99 



mals, and the nicest in their habits. Some cows seem 

 to delight in being clean, in picking out nice places to 

 lie down in, and so keep their udders and sides free 

 from dirt; while others, in the same herd, will invari- 

 ably be about as unclean and reeking as wallowing 

 could make them. It is the same with horses, some 

 requiring two or three times more currying than others. 

 Even pigs have their preferences and selective natures, 

 and I think I could actually make friends of some hogs. 

 Indeed, I have taught one occasionally to stand on his 

 hind feet, and take an apple from my hand. 



Animals are the best woodsmen in the world. 

 Emerson, I believe, said that cows were the best sur- 

 veyors for a railroad (indeed, the streets of Boston are 

 said to succeed the cow paths), and I have noticed 

 in following the paths of deer in the woods that their 

 trails were about the shortest road to water or to the 

 lake shore, and always went by the easiest descent. 

 I could not but observe also how the deer would follow 

 up a blazed line. Quite frequently their tracks led for 

 some distance straight along from blazed tree to 

 blazed tree. Whether they thought that other deer 

 had perhaps bitten the bark, and so followed the blazes 

 as deer "sign," and thus, by keeping along them in this 

 way, found the walking gradually better and the ground 

 harder along the old lines, or whether they had at first 

 stepped from tree to tree merely from curiosity, to 

 learn perchance what had slashed the tree and broken 

 the twigs, I do not know; but their well-beaten paths 

 have followed many a section line in my woods-work, 

 and have diverged only to lead to water or to better 

 forage. Deer know the glades and dingles that are 



