Page:Saunders - Beautiful Joe, 1893.djvu/262

Rh they return every scrap of care given them, with interest. Have you ever heard anything about dehorning, Laura?"

" Not much, auntie. Does uncle approve of it?"

"No indeed. He'd just as soon think of cutting their tails off, as of dehorning them. He says he guesses the Creator knew how to make a cow better than he does. Sometimes I tell John that his argument doesn't hold good, for man in some ways can improve on nature. In the natural course of things, a cow would be feeding her calf for half a year, but we take it away from her, and raise it as well as she could and get an extra quantity of milk from her in addition. I don't know what to think myself about dehorning. Mr. Windham's cattle are all polled, and he has an open space in his barn for them, instead of keeping them in stalls, and he says they're more comfortable and not so confined. I suppose in sending cattle to sea, it's necessary to take their horns off, but when they're going to be turned out to grass, it seems like mutilating them. Our cows couldn't keep the dogs away from the sheep if they didn't have their horns. Their horns are their means of defense."

"Do your cattle stand in these stalls all winter?" asked Miss Laura.

"Oh, yes, except when they're turned out in the barnyard, and then John usually has to send a man to keep them moving or they'd take cold. Sometimes on very fine days they get out all day. You know cows aren't like horses. John says they're like great milk machines. You've got to keep them quiet, only exercising enough to keep them in health. If a cow is hurried or worried, or chilled or heated, it stops her milk yield. And bad usage poisons it. John says you can't take a stick and strike a cow across the back, without her milk being that