A WOMAN’S SUCCESS AND EXPERIENCE.
BY MRS. MARY L. TAYLOR, NORTH VERNON, INDIANA.
My success in keeping the family cow is mainly due to the superior sense of that animal in coming into being in a latitude where a cow can live with as little care and protection, and where the face of unplowed and unharrowed nature furnishes as much food for her as any other; latitude thirty-nine.
My cow is a scrub—cost twenty dollars; had her calf on the fourteenth of February, 1879, and we complimented the saint on whose day she came by calling her Valentine.
HOW WE MANAGED THE CALF.
I put the calf in a pen made in the fence corner and covered with a few old boards, and let the cow in to her every night—first taking from the cow what milk we needed for our family of four persons. I left her with the calf all night, and in the morning milked what the calf had left for me. This was not much after the first two weeks, and after two more weeks I only wasted my time at milking in the morning. I parted with the calf at three months old for eight dollars, and laid this sum by as my capital to draw against for the cow’s winter keeping.
My farm is half an acre in extent, and all of it, except the space occupied by the cottage and a small garden, is lawn, and is well set in Blue-grass, with a sprinkling of Orchard-grass.