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Both myself and wife had always coveted a cow. All
of the family were extravagantly fond of milk. Where so many children were
about, it seemed indispensable to have one; besides, were we not upon a
farm? and what would a farm be without having upon it at least one saint
of the barnyard? As soon as we came on the place, I made inquiries of two
or three persons for a cow. The news flew round the neighborhood with
amazing rapidity, and in the course of two weeks I was besieged with
offers They haunted me in the street, as I went daily to the post-office;
even in the evening, as we sat in our parlor. It seemed as if everybody in
the township had a cow to sell. Indeed, the annoyance continued long after
we had been supplied.
Now, though I knew a great deal of milk, having
learned to like it the very day I was born, yet I was utterly ignorant of
how to choose a cow, and at that time had no friend to advise with. But I
suspected that no one who had a first-rate animal would voluntarily part
with it, and so expected to be cheated. I hinted as much to my wife,
whereupon she begged that the choice might be
left to her; to which I partially consented, thinking that if we should
be imposed on, I should feel better if the imposition could be made
chargeable somewhere else than to my own ignorance. Besides, I knew that
she could hardly be worse cheated than myself.
One morning a very respectable-looking old man drove
a cow up to the door, and called us out to look at her. My wife was
pleased with her looks the moment she set eyes on her, while the children
were delighted with the calf, some two weeks old. I did not like her
movements—she seemed restless and ill-tempered; but the old man said that
was always the way with cows at their first calving. Still, I should not
have bought her. But somehow my wife seemed bewitched in her favor, and
was determined to have her. This the old man could not fail to notice, and
was loud in extolling her good qualities, declaring that she would give
twenty quarts of milk a day. After some further parley, he inadvertently
admitted that she had never been milked. My wife did not notice this
striking discrepancy of a cow giving twenty quarts daily, when as yet no
one had ever milked her; but the lie was too bouncing a one to escape my
notice. As I saw my wife had set her heart upon the cow, I said nothing,
and finally bought cow and calf for thirty dollars, though quite certain
they could have been had for five dollars less, if my wife had not so
plainly shown to the old sinner that she was determined to have them. I do
not think she will ever be up to me in making a bargain.
But as it had been agreed that she should choose a cow, so she was
permitted to have her own way.
At the end of the week the calf was sold for three
dollars—a low price; but then my wife wanted the milk, and she and Kate
were anxious to begin milking. I am sure I was quite willing they should
have all they could get. When they did begin, there was a great time. Now,
most women profess to understand precisely how a cow should be milked,
and yet comparatively few know anything about it. They remind me of the
Irish girls who are hunting places. These are all first-rate cooks, if you
take their word for it, and yet not one in a hundred knows anything of
even the first principles of cooking.
The first process in the operation of milking is to
fondle with the cow, make her acquaintance, and thus give her to
understand that the man or maid with the milking pail approaches her with
friendly intentions, in order to relieve her of the usual lacteal
secretion. It will never do to approach the animal with combative feelings
and intentions. Should the milker be too impetuous; should he swear, speak
loud and sharp, scold or kick, or otherwise abuse or frighten the cow, she
will probably prove refractory as a mule, and may give the uncouth and
unfeeling milker the benefit of her heels,—a very pertinent reward, to
which he, the uncouth milker, is justly entitled. Especially in the case
of a new milker, who may be a perfect stranger to the cow, the utmost
kindness and deliberation are necessary.
Before commencing to milk, a cow should be fed,
or have some kind of fodder offered her, in view of diverting her
attention from the operation of milking. By this means the milk is not
held up, as the saying is, but is yielded freely. All these precautions
are more indispensable when the cow has just been deprived of her calf.
She is then uneasy, fretful and irritable, and generally so disconsolate
as to need the kindest treatment and the utmost soothing. The milker
should be in close contact with the cow's body, for in this position, if
she attempt to kick him, he gets nothing more than a push, whereas if he
sits off at a distance, the cow has an opportunity to inflict a severe
blow whenever she feels disposed to do so.
All milkers of cows should understand that the udder
and teats are highly organized, and consequently very sensitive; and
these facts should be taken into consideration by amateur milkers,
especially when their first essay is made on a young animal after the
advent of her first calf, and that one just taken from her. At this
period, the hard tugging and squeezing to which many poor dumb brutes have
to submit in consequence of the application of hard-fisted, callous, or
inexperienced fingers, is a barbarity of the very worst kind; for it often
converts a docile creature into a vicious one, from which condition it is
extremely difficult, if not impossible, to wean her.
Of every one of these requisites both wife and
daughter were utterly ignorant. They went talking and laughing into the
barn, one with a bright tin
pail in her hand, an object which the cow
had never before seen, and both made at her, forgetting that they were
utter strangers to her. Besides, she was thinking of her absent calf, and
did not want to see anything else. Their appearance and clamor of course
frightened her, and as they approached her, so she avoided them. They
followed, but she continued to avoid, and once or twice put down her head,
shook it menacingly, and even made an incipient lunge at them with her
sharply pointed horns. These decided demonstrations of anger frightened
them in turn, and they forthwith gave up the pursuit of milk in the face
of difficulties so unexpected. We got none that night. In the morning we
sent for an experienced milker, but she had the utmost difficulty in
getting the cow to stand quiet even for a moment. My wife was quite
subdued about the matter. It would never do to keep a cow that nobody
could milk. She said but little, however—it was her
cow. Longer trial produced no more
encouraging result, as she seemed untamable, and my wife was glad to have
me sell her for twenty dollars, at the same time resolving never again to
buy a cow with her first calf.
It was voted unanimously that another should be
procured, and that this time the choice should be left to me. Now, I never
had any idea of buying poor things of any kind merely because they were
cheap. When purchasing or making tools or machinery, I never bought or
made any but the very best, as I found that even a good workman could
never do a good job with poor tools. So with all
my farm implements—I bought the best of their kind that could be had. If
my female gardeners had been furnished with heavy and clumsy hoes and
rakes, because such were cheap, their mere weight would have disgusted
them with the business of hoeing and weeding. So with a cow. It is true, I
had become the owner of a magnificent thirty-dollar horse; but it was the
only beast I could get hold of at the moment when a horse must be had.
Besides, he turned out to be like a singed cat, a vast deal better than he
looked. I had repeatedly heard of a cow in the neighboring town, which
was said to yield so much milk as to be the principal support of a small
family whose head was a hopeless drunkard. She had cost seventy-five
dollars, and had been a present to the drunkard's wife from one of her
relatives. By careful inquiry, I satisfied myself that this cow gave
twenty quarts daily, and that five months after calving, and on very
indifferent pasture. I went to see her, and then her owner told me she was
going to leave the place, and would sell the cow for fifty dollars. I did
not hesitate a moment, but paid the money and had the cow brought home the
same evening. My wife and daughter had not the least difficulty in
learning to milk her. Under their treatment and my improved feeding, we
kept her in full flow for a long time. She gave quite as much milk as two
ordinary cows, while we had the expense of keeping only one. This I
consider genuine good management: the best is always the cheapest.
The cow was never permitted to go out of the
barnyard. A trough of water enabled her to drink as often as she needed,
but her green food was brought to her regularly three times daily, with
double allowance at night. I began by mowing all the little grass-plots
about the house and lanes, for in these
sheltered nooks the sod sends up a heavy growth far in advance of field or
meadow. But this supply was soon exhausted, though it lasted more than a
week: besides, these usually neglected nooks afforded several mowings
during the season, and the repeated cuttings produced the additional
advantage of maintaining the sod in beautiful condition, as well as
getting rid of numberless weeds. When the grass had all been once mowed
over, we resorted to the clover. This also was mowed and taken to her; and
by this treatment my little clover-field held out astonishingly. Long
before I had gone over it once, the portion first mowed was up high enough
to be mowed again. Indeed, we did secure some hay in addition. In this way
both horse and cow were soiled. When the clover gave out, the green corn
which I had sowed in rows was eighteen inches to two feet high, and in
capital condition to cut and feed. It then took the place of clover. Both
horse and cow devoured it with high relish. It was the extra sweet corn
now so extensively cultivated in New Jersey for market, and contained an
excess of saccharine matter, which made it not only very palatable, but
which sensibly stimulated the flow of milk.
The yield of green food which this description of
corn gives to the acre, when thus sowed, is enormous. Not having weighed
it, I cannot speak as to the exact quantity, but should judge it to be at
least seven times that of the best grass or clover. Even without cutting
up with a straw-knife, the pigs ate it with equal avidity. In addition to
this, the cow was fed morning and night with a little bran. The unconsumed
corn, after being dried where it grew, was cut and gathered for winter
fodder, and when cut fine and mixed with turnips which had been passed
through a slicer, kept the cow in excellent condition. She of course got
many an armful of cabbage-leaves during the autumn and all through the
winter, with now and then a sprinkling of sliced pumpkins, from which the
seeds had first been taken, as they are sure to diminish the flow of milk.
Thus I was obliged to lay out no money for either
horse or cow, except the few dollars expended for bran. By this treatment
I secured all the manure they made. By feeding the barnyard itself, as
well as the hog-pen, with green weeds and whatever litter and trash could
be gathered up, the end of the season found me with a huge manure pile,
all nicely collected under a rough shed, out of reach of drenching rain,
hot sun, and wasting winds. I certainly secured thrice as much in one
season as had ever been made on that place in three. In addition to this,
the family had had more milk than they could use, fresh, rich, and
buttery. Even the pigs fell heir to an occasional bucket of skim-milk.
When our city friends came to spend a day or two
with us, we were able to astonish them with a tumbler of thick cream,
instead of the usual staple beverages of the tea-table. My wife evidently
felt a sort of pride in making a display of this kind, and Kate invariably
spread herself by taking our visitors to the barnyard, to let them see how
expert she had become at milking. When they remarked, at table, on the
surpassing richness of the cream, as well as the milk, my wife was very
apt to reply—
"Yes, but when your turn comes to go in the country,
be particular not to buy a cheap cow."
This remark generally led to inquiry, and then Kate
was brought out with the whole story of our first and second cow, which
she accordingly gave with illustrations infinitely more amusing than any I
have been able to introduce. Indeed, her power of amplification sometimes
astonished me. She told the story of our having been cheated by the old
sinner, with such graphic liveliness, my wife now and then interposing a
parenthesis, that the company invariably concluded it was by far the
better policy to give a wide berth to cheap cows. I am not certain whether
the fun occasioned by Kate's narratives was not really very cheaply
purchased by the small loss we suffered on that occasion.
This abundance
of milk wrought quite a change in our habits as to tea and coffee. At
supper, during the summer, we drank milk only; but insensibly we ran on in
the same way into cold weather. In the end, we found that we liked coffee
in the morning only. This was a clear saving,
besides being quite as wholesome. Our city milk bill had usually been a
dollar a week. I am quite sure it did not cost over sixty cents a week to
keep the cow. Then we had puddings and other dishes, which milk alone
makes palatable, whenever we wanted them; and at any time of a hot
summer's day a full draught of cold milk was always within reach. Then the
quality was much superior, exceeding anything to be found in city milk. I
must admit that keeping a cow, like most other good things, involves some
trouble; but my family would cheerfully undertake twice as much as they
have ever had with ours, rather than dispense with this yet uncanonized
saint of the barnyard.
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