Not by Bread Alone, by Agnes Kane (TPB, autographed, 1991, $7)
Want to know about "55 years with registered Holsteins"? I'll bet you don't think you do, but really, you really do!
Agnes wrote about the births, successes, illnesses and deaths of her cows. She was the second daughter, and loved being in the barn with her father. The family was just starting to build a herd. Most of the "scrub" cows weren't much good, but her dad was slowly improving the herd. He had just bought two purebred Holsteins, and 2 Registered ones. (Is there a difference?) Then disaster hit. In 1934 an epidemic of TB hit cow herds in NY, so every one's cows had to be tested. All but 2 of the Kane family cows failed. The sick cows were branded with a "T" on their jaws, and taken away by large trucks.
Agnes had looked at most of those cows as pets, so you can imagine how she felt. Still life goes on. After the barns had been disinfected, her dad began to restock. Kane says they didn't have much money, which is probably the understatement of the decade. After all, they had just lost 4 purebreds as well as all but two of the scrubs. How do you recover from such a loss? And mind you this was 1935, and the middle of the depression. Luckily her dad was able to buy an entire herd of Holsteins from a farmer who was selling out. (Had he lost his farm?) The next March, "Old Aaggie", a big, old, lame Holstein, with a registered name of Aaggie Ormsby Perfection Segis, gave birth to a calf they named Young Aaggie. This Aaggie wasAgnes' first purebred Holstein, the cow of her first 4-H project, and the love of her life.
After Aaggie came other cows. Judy, the daughter of Aaggie's son Prince, was the " finest, the first to classify Ex, the first to go over 200,000# milk, the only one to make over 10,000 fat; at one time she was fifth high in the country." I don't know what all that means, except that Judy was one special cow.
This book is one of those that grow on you. Look for it on the new non-fiction table. (L-loc)
