In such cases, if the animal can only be started chewing an artificially
prepared cud she will often, on swallowing it, "raise" again; and
rumination, thus started, will proceed once more, and the congestion be
relieved.
For a week or more we were kept busy, night and morning, furnishing the
bark-eaters with cuds, prepared from the macerated inner bark of sweet
elder, impregnated with rennet. These had to be put in the mouths of the
cows by main strength, and held there till from force of habit the
animal began chewing, swallowing and "raising" again.
What was stranger, this unnatural appetite for gnawing bark was not
confined wholly to cows that fall; the shoats out in the orchard took to
gnawing apple-trees, and spoiled several valuable Sweetings and
Gravensteins before the damage was discovered. It was an "off year."
Every living thing seemed to require a tonic.
The bitter milk proved the most difficult problem. No bitter weed or
foul grass grew in the pasture. The herd had grazed there for years;
nothing of the sort had been noticed before.
The village apothecary, who styled himself a chemist, was asked to give
an opinion on a specimen of the cream; but he failed to throw much light
on the subject.
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