Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-02-15
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

| When you take the milk in from
the front steps do you ever stop tC
think what lies behind the bottles?
Do you ever think of the COW?
The work of the modern dairy is
marvellous, but more wonderful ia,
Is the secret alchemy of the cow.
Life on dairy farm is a perpetual
round of chores. The cows must be
fed, the cows must be MIXED Every
day, rain or shine, the routine must
be gone through with in order that
we Of the cities may find our milk
neatly bottled on our doorsteps in the
morning.
Some idea of the life of a dairy.
man may be gained from Jared Van
Wagenen's The Cow" published In
1922 in the "Open Country" series by
the Macmillan Co.
For more than a hundred years the
authors people have managed a hill
side farm in New York State, 1.-The
kingdom of the cow" And if any
one thinks for a second that it has
been easy work, he should read the
last of the book first.
The very last page gives the au-
thor's philosophy:
sometimes our business seems a
curiously futile performance, like
growing season from April to No
vember we toll to grow and gather
the crops that shall fill the great
barns and silos. And then all the
remainder of the year we devote to
feeding out the crops we have gath.
cred with such pains, and when
Spring comes we have always what
we had the year before-an empty
barn. And always in fair weather
and foul we milk the COWS. Does it
not seem bootless task? Sometimes
perhaps | ask myself this question.
Yet / remember: Take care of the
soil and the soil will take care of
you. For a hundred years and more
my people have worked for this old
hill farm, and have lived by it, and
on the whole it has answered to their
care. A hundred1 years ago it sent a
boy to college and bit is sending boys
and girls to college still. OF the by
gone men who titled it none ate the
bread of idleness and none has known
want. I like to remember that out
of it's soil for all those years has been
nourished a wholesome civilization and
a generous life
X X X
Surely that is a fine way to look
Ct ciiS . Jou, anu IL gives SOIIlG Iued
OF the sort of man who writes 1.-THE
Cow" There is an impression in some
city quarters that a farmer is neces-
sarily a "hick," but the above para
graph ought to show how much mis-
taken they are. Here is family of
dairymen who have for a hundred
years been cOllege-bred men, and here
at last is one who writes entertain
ingly of the philosophy of the cow
Without the COW our modern civ
ilization would not be what it is to-
day. The "beef-eating" nations also
are the milk-drinking nations. Per-
haps as much of the push" and
go of our races has come from milk
as from beef. 1t is unfortunate that
the term "milksop" ever came into
use, for there is no food greater than
milk. In fact, in some respects it is
the only food-that is, it is practical
ly the only substance consumed by
man which was designed primarily
for food and for nothing else. Part
of the egg falls into this category, as
does honey-but can you think of
anything else?
Just as the white man took America
away from the Indians, so do men of
today take the cows milk away from
the calf. Instead of feeding by look.
ing up and taking it's food warm, in
small quantities many times a day.