358 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
May 20 
CONTRARY CATTLE. 
A WOMAN FREES HKK MINI). 
PART II. 
I have seen a hired man kick and 
pound a poor old cow simply because she 
didn’t drink ; he was mad because he 
had had all the work of letting her out 
of the stable for nothing. Another fel¬ 
low had a piece of gas pipe with which 
to strike the cows and horses across the 
face, and when he heard the owner 
coming he would slip it up his coat 
sleeve, but he was found out. Let a 
farmer do a little watching if necessary 
and perhaps he will find out some of the 
reasons why farming doesn’t pay. He may 
see the hired man skim off and eat all the 
sweet cream he can hold and thus lower 
his butter test mightily. He will also 
drink all the new milk a good Jersey 
cow will give, so that he will feel rather 
ill—have no appetite for breakfast, etc. 
Some of our men when watering horses 
have left the stable with a pail nearly 
full of water, though the horses were 
still whinnying for more. On being asked 
if they had given the horses all they 
would drink, they said : “Oh, yes ! they 
want some hay.” The owner took the 
water and offered it to the horses and 
they drank every drop. One farmer who 
did not live on his farm, had among the 
help a hired man whose main duty was 
to pump water for the stock. One day 
the owner was at the farm looking over 
the cattle and noticed they were eating 
snow, and asked the man if they were 
thirsty. 
“ Oh no, I give them plenty of water 
always.” 
“Well you just pump some water 
and see if they will drink ; ” so the man 
began pumping and kept at it the greater 
part of the day and the cattle had water 
enough for once. One farmer uses the 
seals used on freight cars on his milk 
cans, but they must be on the cows too. 
On one large dairy farm the men have 
cups hidden, to be used if they get a 
chance, between meals, and as there are 
several hands probably that is one reason 
the farm doesn’t pay expenses. 
A $20-per-month man who had only 
done the morning chores and was told to 
pitch some hay over the beam ready to 
move to another barn, was found lying 
in the hay reading a blood-and-thunder 
novel, with not a forkful of hay moved. 
He said he had begun just as he could 
hold out, and at that rate we could not 
afford to keep him. I have seen them 
stand pouring milk into a can and look¬ 
ing up the road, allowing it to run on 
the ground instead of into the can, and, 
when spoken to about it, they said, 
“ Well, what of it ? ” It didn’t ctme out 
of their pockets, you see. One fellow 
who was always breaking things was 
finally told that, unless more careful, 
all breakages would be charged to him. 
There might be satisfaction in charging 
them, but that was about all, for, as he 
aptly remarked, “ You can’t get wool off 
a frog, can you ?” One hired man always 
took his little dog with him to get the 
cows, and, after a time, the old farmer 
noticed that several of them were very 
lame, and he kept wondering what the 
trouble could be. “ He never had any 
such disease among cows in all his life,” 
and still their hind feet kept getting 
worse and worse, until some of the young 
cows could hardly go to and from the 
pasture. Finally the hired man thought 
it wouldn’t do to take that cur with him 
any more to bite the poor creatures’ 
heels; for that was the disease which 
caused the swollen, bleeding heels, and 
the hired man told of it and thought it 
smart. I have seen the cattle on a farm 
that was in litigation, and run by hired 
help, turned out in severe winter 
weather on deep snow-covered hills and 
left till chore time, ravenously rooting 
in the snow for something to eat, and 
then clubbed to the barn by a brutal 
hired man and tormented by his dog. 
Many farmers and farmers’ sons are 
nearly or quite as bad as hired help in 
the treatment of their live stock, being 
always ready with a kick and a blow for 
the poor dumb creatures, as if that was 
what they were made for—to stand in 
fear of lordly man. One farmer asked 
what was good to kill the lice on his 
cows; he said he got all covered with 
the pests when milking and on that ac 
count he wanted a remedy. 
I suppose that if they could all have 
found a footing on the cows’ bodies no 
remedy would have been thought neces¬ 
sary. Another farmer sent for the veter¬ 
inary doctor to prescribe for his colts; 
so he came and looked them over, gave 
them a little harmless mixture, like 
sugar and water, and then told the 
farmer to feed them all the grain and 
milk they would eat. He did not have 
the courage to tell the farmer that the 
colts were starving, although he told a 
neighbor who inquired about them, that 
“all the medicine they needed was 
enough to eat and drink.” This farmer 
believed in putting colts through the 
toughening process advocated by some, 
but in this case instead of getting tough, 
they got “contrary.” Another was in 
the habit of bringing in poor starved 
and frozen hens and throwing them un¬ 
der the stove to die or thaw out and 
come to life as best they could. He also 
left a poor old horse to suffer from co d 
and hunger till it was so “contrary” 
that it couldn’t get up with help even, 
and when in its dying stages he fussed 
with it a little, trying to feed and get it 
to stand and finally shot it, and the same 
kind of treatment was meted out toother 
stock on the farm. Another farmer went 
for his young cattle to a distant hill- 
pasture, where they had been during the 
summer and found that one of his heifers 
had a short time before a calf, but he 
would not take an extra step to find it, 
or pay a few cents to have some one go 
to find and kill it, but drove the heifer 
home with the other cattle and left the 
poor thing to go bleating about until it 
died of starvation. 
If a farmer is insensible to the suffer¬ 
ings his stock endure from abuse and 
neglect, he ought to feel the effects of 
the law for the prevention of cruelty to 
animals as severely as any who are ar¬ 
rested for ill-treating their horses, etc. 
The slow torture by freezing, lice, thirst, 
starvation, etc., to be found on many an 
apparently well-managed farm, is just 
as reprehensible as the other kind of 
abuse and is the very acme of cruelty to 
animals. It is among this class that 
“ farmin’ don’t pay,” and the pity is that 
it pays them well enough to keep at it 
as they generally do A Vermont farm 
is a good place to take comfort and make 
money too, if one will hustle half as 
much as in other kinds of business, and 
a great part of this talk about “farmin’ 
don’t pay ” is the result of the bad man¬ 
agement of the farmers. 
Vermont. cabbie t. meigs. 
HONEY BUSINESS NOT ALL SWrETS. 
0 C. M., Marengo, III.—For years I 
have had great respect for The R. N.-Y. 
That respect was heightened when, on 
page 290, at the bottom of an article 
about bees, the editor added, “Of course, 
this is the sunny side.” It shows that 
The R N.-Y., unlike many other papers, 
cares more to have its readers know the 
truth than to publish something sensa¬ 
tional. Not that the writers of such arti¬ 
cles mean to mislead; but, looking at 
things through rose-colored glasses and 
shutting their eyes to all but the most 
pleasing part, they give a view that is 
anything but correct. 
This statement is made in the article 
referred to : “ One colony is enough to 
begin with, and there will be no more 
trouble in handling them than an old 
sitting hen; nor as much when one is once 
used to the little pets.” I think I know 
something about sitting hens, and have 
been pecked by them till the blood 
came, and I think I have become “ used 
to the little pets,” having handled them 
for more than 30 ^ years, and having ! 
made bee-keeping my sole business for 
a number of years, and it seems to 
me that any one making the state 
ment quoted has never had much expe¬ 
rience at handling bees, or else has 
had an exceptional experience with hens 
or bees. I get stings plenty of them. 
True, the after effects are not what they 
used to be ; the places don’t swell as 
they used to, but the first pain of the 
sting is just as great as ever, and brings 
many a groan if there’s no one by to 
hear me. 
The statement that one colony gave 
220 pounds of honey in one season may 
be all straight enough, and the writer 
might also have added that a man in 
Texas got 1,000 pounds as the proceeds 
of one colony, but he doesn’t mention 
how many cases there are where no sur¬ 
plus is yielded. A man may report §25 
received from one square rod of fruit, 
but it doesn’t follow that he can get 
§4 000 from an acre. A significant com¬ 
ment on the Texas case is that the man 
did not give up his farm and devote him¬ 
self entirely to bee culture; indeed, 
nothing is said about his beekeeping of 
late years. 100 to 150 pounds of surplus 
honey from a colony, in a good season, 
sounds very well, but it would be well 
to mention also that good seasons are 
rather scarce. Indeed, I never reached 
150 pounds in any year as an average 
of all my colonies, and not more than 
once in 15 years have I reached 100. In 
more than one season the average yield 
per colony was less than one pound, and 
for the past ten years it has fallen far 
below 50 pounds. I have no desire to 
undervalue the business of beekeeping. 
It is a healthful, delightful, fascinating 
pursuit, but it is well to see the thorns 
as well as the roses, and if I were living 
for money alone, I would get out of the 
business to-morrow. 
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