THE GREAT SAVING EFFECTED BY KEEPING A COW.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2739, 1 February 1890, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE GREAT SAVING EFFECTED BY KEEPING A COW.

The man up Newtown way who enjoyed vegetables from his own g-trden through the cummer bought a cow. His wife told him how nice it would be to have a oow on tho premises, so as to have milk fresh and pure every day, and always in time, and always in abundance. Then they, could mako butter themselves, and not eat the rank stuff out of the store. She told him therj was enough stuff from tho garden and t ible to almost keep the cow; and the product would bo just about so much clear gain. Ho figured it up himself with a pencil, and the result surprised him. He wondered why ho had not kept a cow before, and inwardly condemned himself for the loss he had been inflicting upon himself. Then he bought a cow. In the evening of its arrival he went out to milk it; but the animal was excited by the strange surroundings, and stepped on our friend, and kicked over his pail, and neßrly knocked ono of his eyes out with hor tail. He worked at the experiment for an hour, but without success. Then his wife came out to give advice, and his son came out to see the fun. The cow put out one of her heels through the woman's dress, and knocked the boy down in tho mud, which ended their interest in the matter. One of the neighbours milked the cow that night, and came around the next morning and showed the man how to do it. The third day the oow escaped the snrvellianoe of the boy who was left to watoh her; and, was nowhere to be found. The boy had also disappeared, and onr neighbour found ho was obliged to hunt her uu before supper. He walked around for a while, and then returned home ; but the animal had not been seen. Then he went off again, and mado a very thorough searoh, and about ten o'clock that night ho came back from Vogeltown with tho cow, his clothes begrimed with perspiration and dust, and his face flushed and scratched. He wanted to kick the animal's ribs in ; but, realising that such a course would result in pecuniary damage, he changed his mind. The boy wishes he had obeyed the first impulse. On tho fourth day they churned, so as to have fresh butter for the table. The mother took hold of tho dasher first, because, Bhe said, she used to do it when a girl, aud likei no better sport. She pounded away till she caught a crick in the back that doubled her up liko a knife; and then she put the heir to it. He had been standing around, eagerly waiting a chance, and grumbling because he didn't get it; and when the dasher was placed in his hand, he was so happy he could hardly contain himself. He pumped away for an hour I at it; then be said, if he had to do it any more he would run away, and be a robber. At noon the man came home, and learned the situation. He was a little disgusted at the " tom-foolery," as he called it, and took hold of the churn himself, and made it bounce for a while. Then his stomach commenced to fall, and his spine to unjoint, and his shoulders to loosen. He stopped and wiped oft the perspiration, and looked around with a melancholy oast to his features, and went at it again. The butter didn't come, however; but everything in the way of oratorical effeot did. He got so dreadfully excited that his wife smelling strong of camphor, took the dasher away from him, and went to work herself. At this the son put his cap under his jacket, and miraculously disappeared. Later on in the day, the milk was poured around the grape-vine. On tho fifth day the cow knocked down a length of fence to the next lot, and ate all the apples from a tree that stood in the yard ; and when the people attempted to drive her out, she carried away a new ivy on hor horns, knocked down a valuable vase of flowers, and capped the climax by stumbling over a box of ferns, and falling on a pile of hot house frames. On tho sixth day our neighbour sold his cow to a butcher, and now eats strong buttor which comeß from the store.