porkpal said:Not to mention the inconvenience of getting your dairy herd in for milking from some distant field...
Depends on the farmer.
Sadly they quit dairy farming but when I would drive down South, often at milking time, one farmer had farm way fenced in , at least one half mile and when I drove by the cattle would be strolling back to the barn with the leader ahead of the pack and the usual couple of stragglers trailing by fifty yards or so.
A friend I grew up with lived on a farm and his dad had a similar farm way , only his had big corner, that led to the woods where the cattle would pasture, it was just as long.
I used to hunt on a lake where there was a steep wooded bank, the farmer that owned it had quit his dairy cattle years earlier but we would walk the old cattle paths on the steep hills. Without those it would have been tough to dangerous going.
They remained for long time after the cattle left.
I miss those things from the past.
