The Press., 1891-05-14

invested all our spare cash in COWS and waited for results. Cattle were spoken of as sure card for fortune. Keep cattle Buy improved breeds. Raise them
 Gross" them. Feed them for nothing on the native grass. Buy cows. Cows give milk. People can live on milk
 Milk then to us was a luxury.
 It paid no milkman to travel up and down the rough and rocky lodges of the Tuolumne ringing bis bell at miners cabins half mile apart. Indeed he could not so travel without carrying his milk Ia panier on donkey's back, and by the time it had reached it's place of destination it would have been agitated to butter. So all of us miners went in for cows. Improved cows. We bought each an improved COW. We hauled this COW by ropes across the raging, eddying. furious river to our side. Frequently she arrived more dead than alive. Then came season of hope and expectation as to fortunes through cows.
 We arose at in the morning, built the fire for breakfast, went out and sought our COWS, generally feeding or re- posing mile or more from our cabins, caught thesecow milked them, returned to the cabin, finished the cooking of either burned or cold breakfast, went forth and labored in the claim till noon, came home, cooked dinner, went forth again at 1 p. m., labored till 6, went back to the cabins, chopped wood for fuel, travelled 300 feet or yards to the spring for water. returned, mixed our bread, put it in tho oven, went out and millzed the COW, then Jent over the hot stove for an hour until bread was baked, and then, heated, flushed, perspiring, exhausted from the days labor, and with nerves quivering by reason of such exhaustion, we ar ranged the miners table, sat down to the meal, and wondered why we had 90 little appetite.
 Keeping cows proved laborious work for miners. When in addition to hn- ding the fire in the morning, cooking your own breakfast, coming home at night wet and tired after working all day in the ground sluice, then hacking away at some old stump to get wood enough to cook the supper, travelling maybe an eighth of mile to the near est spring for pail of water, and bend ing and bothering with meat frying and bread making, you add chasing night and morn, milk pail in hand, some con traTy COW all over the flat in order to milk her you pile too heavya load on any mans back, because in the matter of housekeeping we had ceased the co operative system. We dweat all apart, each a hermit in his own cabin. We were diverse in habit, and could not get along with each others peculia1itieA The neat man couldn't abide the slovenly man. The economiea1sman couldn't ait patiently by and see his partner Gut po- tato parings quarter of an inch in thickness. The nervous man was ex- hausted by his partners whistling or snoring, and all these and numberleas other opposing peculiarities at last caused each man, hermitike. to retire into his own cell.
 We had other trouble with our cows for they were ravenous after salt. We neglected to "salt them" Result: If any article containing the least incrusta- tion of salt was left outside our cabins the entire herd would gather about it at night, lick it, fight for it's possession and keep up steady grunting, stamp ing, lowing and believing. They would eat clothing left out over night on the clothes line to dry. In such manner and for such reason also would they eat through the cotton walls of our houses. Once, when away for three days attend ing county convention at Sonora, on re- turning to my cabin found t . scene of ruin and desolation. A COW had eaten through the cloth wall on one side, and eaten her way out at the other, and had stopped long enough inside to eat up a& my flour, rice and vegetables. Once, when moving my household effects from one cabin to another on 8 wheelbarrow, left it near the middle.of the fat for a few minutes.
 On returning saw a,cow making off with my best coat. She held it in her mouth by one sleeve. On seeing me she started off on a run, still thus holding the sleeve in her mouth and making vio- lent efforts to eject it. The coat sleeve was 8 ruin when did got it. She had chewed it for salts sake to the likeness of fish net. Keeping COWS did not make our fortunes at Swett's Then everybody said: '.Keep hogs They will feed on acorns and increase very rapidly. In 8 few years the plains and hills will groan under the burden of your pork" So I bought hogs. bought 9 SOW and seven pigs. They gave me much to think of. .s i