s,
taking an Asmodeus-like glance into every field, how marvellously
would he find that he had been deceived! He might travel miles, and
fly over scores of fields, and find no such animals, nor anything
approaching to them. By making inquiries he would perhaps discover
in most districts one spot where something of the kind could be
seen--an oasis in the midst of a desert. On the farm he would see a
long range of handsome outhouses, tiled or slated, with comfortable
stalls and every means of removing litter and manure, tanks for
liquid manure, skilled attendants busy in feeding, in preparing
food, storehouses full of cake. A steam-engine in one of the
sheds--perhaps a portable engine, used also for threshing--drives
the machinery which slices up or pulps roots, cuts up chaff, pumps
up water, and performs a score of other useful functions. The yards
are dry, well paved, and clean; everything smells clean; there are
no foul heaps of decaying matter breeding loathsome things and
fungi; yet nothing is wasted, not even the rain that falls upon the
slates and drops from the eaves. The stock within are worthy to
compare with those magnificent beasts seen at the show. It is from
these places that the prize animals are drawn; it is here that the
beef which makes England famous is fattened; it is from here that
splendid creatures are sent abroad to America or the Colonies, to
improve the breed in those distant countries. Now step forth again
over the hedge, down yonder in the meadows.

This is a cow-pen, one of the old-fashioned style; in the dairy and
pasture counties you may find them by hundreds still. It is pitched
by the side of a tall hedge, or in an angle of two hedges, which
themselves form two walls of the enclosure. The third is the
cow-house and shedding itself; the fourth is made of willow rods.
These rods are placed upright, confined between horizontal poles,
and when new this simple contrivance is not wholly to be despised;
but when the rods decay, as they do quickly, then gaps are formed,
through which the rain and sleet and bitter wind penetrate with
ease. Inside this willow paling is a lower hedge, so to say, two
feet distant from the other, made of willow work twisted--like a
continuous hurdle. Into this rude manger, when the yard is full of
cattle, the fodder is thrown. Here and there about the yard, also,
stand cumbrous cribs for fodder, at which two cows can feed at once.
In one corner there is a small pond,