Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1877 — Intelligence of Cows. [ARTICLE]

Intelligence of Cows.

The London Milk Journal says: “That cows have memory, language, signs and means of enjoying pleasant associations, combining for aggressive purposes, has been recognized, but scarcely to the extent the subject merits. Traviling in Italy many years ago, we visiting some of the large dairy farms in the neighborhood of Ferrara. Interspersed among much ofthe low-lying,u nhealthy land, remarkable for the prevalence on it of very fatal forms of anthrax in the summer season, are fine undulating pasture lands, and the fields are of great extent. We happened to stop at a farmhouse one fine autumn afternoon w’hen the cows were about 'to to be milked. A herd of about one hundred was grazinghomewards. The women took their positions with stools close to the house, and as the cows approached, names were called out, which at first we thought addressed to the milkmaids. Rosa, Florence, Giula, Sposa, and many names, which were noted by us at the time were called out by the overseer, or one of the women, and we were astonished to see cow after cow cease feeding or chewing the cud and make direct, sometimes in a. trot; for the woman who usually milked her. The practice, we found, was not confined to one farm; all the cows on each farm knew their respective names, and took up their position in the open just as readily as the individual members of some large herds of this country turning from their fields take up their places in the sheds.”