NEW YORK. JULY 24, 1886 
PRICE FIVE CENTS, 
82.00 PER YEAR. 
Entered according to Act of Congress, .n the year 1886, by the Rural New-Yorker In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
gaudy neck strap and its big bell. This is the 
artist's idea of a Swiss chalet. When, years 
ago, I spent a vacation among the Swiss 
mountains, I looked in vain for all this, and 
yet I found lots of chalets and cows and cow- 
herders of both sexes, but very different in 
their reality from those of the artist's imagina¬ 
tion. 
Fancy a mountain side, steep and rocky, 
with well worn paths among the rocks, lead¬ 
ing from one little green, grassy slope or flat 
to another, the grass thick and short, but rich 
and succulent, and as you turn around a crag, 
a rough log hut built against the steep moun¬ 
tain side, which has been dug away to make 
the hut fit into the nook. The frout projects 
several feet and is supported by rough posts; 
the roof is of split logs, covered by bright 
moss and grass in places where soil from 
above has lodged on it, aud as you look up, a 
goat or two look down upon you. as they 
of half-a-dozen wild, bare-footed, rosy-cheeked 
vapor from the smouldering, half-rotten wood 
fire into your eyes. 
If you look into the chalet you will see its 
rough walls, the equally rough roof through 
which a stray sunbeam glints down through 
the smoke from a fire on the floor, on its way 
out through the open gable, which serves as a 
chimney and a window at the same time. The 
fire is built against a rock which projects into 
the chalet, and a part of the same rock makes 
the hearth. A wooden gallows frame sup¬ 
ports a big iron kettle over the fire, in which 
the milk is warming in preparation for mak¬ 
ing a cheese of the kind known as Gruyere. 
The requisite utensils, all of -wood, but all 
white and clean and sweet as hot water and 
sand can make them, lie around on benches 
and on shelves. An annexed shed, equally 
rough, contains the milk in earthern jars, 
which is set for cream, and the churn aud 
ladles and some "chunks" of butter, which is 
boys and girls, who clamber over the rocks 
here and there. But she has a long tin horn 
with which she calls the cows home, and they 
generally come when they hear it blown. But 
they are not far away, for while we talk with 
the man we can hear the bells tinkling and 
perhaps see the cows on a crag cropping grass, 
and the blue sky or a glittering glacier in the 
distance, as a back-ground behind them. 
And this brings me to where I should have 
started—the Swiss cows. But it is interesting 
to note the kind of country and the circum¬ 
stances which have made these cow? what they 
are—hardy, rather coarse, but stout, robust 
and just suited for the life they lead. But as 
elsewhere there are cows and cows, so there 
are in Switzerland. For the native race 
have been selected and bred and fed and 
trained with great care and jealousy, aud 
there are several strains or varieties of them, 
SWISS COWS. 
HENRY STEWART. 
VERYHODY has heard of 
the Swiss chalets. Many 
liersous have seen pic¬ 
tures of them made of 
highly carved ornament¬ 
al work, perched upon a 
crag or the mountain 
side, with a foaming cat¬ 
aract pouring into the 
back windo w and an over¬ 
hanging avalanche all 
ready to fall and sweep 
down the almost jterpen- 
dicular slope. And the 
rai 
SWISS CATTLE 
hardy mountaineer, in pink tights and yellow 
jacket, with slashed and embroidered sleeves 
and a brood hat with a big feather in it, blow¬ 
ing a horn to call the cows home; while the 
pretty rod-cheeked mountaiueeress, all pictur 
esque in red stockings, short green skirts, and 
white bodice, laced wonderfully in the front, 
aud open ©nought to show the snowy laeo 
which covers the bosom, aud a wide straw 
hat with a lot of gaily colored ribbons floating 
iu the breezy air, waiting with her milk jar 
and three-legged stool for the cows which are 
seen away behind all, coming down the per" 
pendicularly precipitous crags as carelessly as 
if they were on a level meadow, each with its 
chew mouthfuls of grass they have bitten off 
from the grassy roof. This is n real Swiss 
chalet. All around are green grass and moss 
on the damp rucks, from which, among ferns 
aud flowers, flows down a little rivulet of 
sparkling water, cold as ice and as pure. A 
little way off on the level bench is an open 
shed of logs aud split slabs, in which the cows 
are milked, and which one setts is badly in 
need of beiug cleaned out. 
A cooking pot hung upon three sticks and a 
few flat, stones around it for seats, mark the 
site of the kitchen, which is airy, no doubt, 
but yet smoky, as the gusts which whirl down 
Yery yellow and very sw’eet and rich, and 
which the mountaineer tells us goes to the 
“pension" away up the mouutaiu. The rich 
herbage of these mountain slopes, nooks and 
sometimes fields, where a cove sets up m the 
mouutaiu side like a hay in the ocean, and 
the occasional open woods and forests, gives a 
fine flavor to both the butter and the cheese, 
and a high color as well. The herdsman is a 
blue-eyed, round-faced fellow, dressed in 
brown homespun and has wooden shoes; while 
the "Swiss maid’* is sun-burned and has 
thick shoes aud no stockings at all, aud has 
homespun petticoats and no ribbons on her 
hat, and rarely a hat at all, ami is the mother 
much alike in the main, but to believe their 
owners, differing verj* much in excellence, 
each being better than the others by a 
very great deal indeed. The variety known 
as Schwitz (including four sub-varieties of 
Gessenay, Simmeuthal, Emmenthal and Er- 
lenbaoh) has been bred with much care, and 
as the summer pasturage and the Winter 
keeping iu the valleys are of the best kind, 
these cattle are the most valuable of all the 
Swiss races, and are scut abroad to the French 
and German dairies iu large numbers. The 
prevailing color is a yellowish red and white, 
the frame is large and rather coarse, the dis¬ 
position is quiet and docile, and the milking 
