Animal Husbandry Machines of Loving Grace

Because I am an urbane cosmopolitan who got animal welfare pilled from the effective altruists rather than firsthand experience interfacing with animals, I've been finding Wendell Berry's agrarian writings to be very illuminating. This idyllic scene in The Need to be Whole has grabbed me by the throat since I read it: An Amish family long dear to me bases the commercial part of its economy mainly on a dairy herd of forty-­five Jersey cows, for which the family’s small farm produces the necessary feed. From this modest enterprise the family achieves a “quality of life” that is admirable. They recently built themselves a new house. At the time of my last visit the farmwife and her two daughters, then seven and ten years old, were busy at the evening milking. It was a happy scene. The mother and daughters cooperated perfectly, each doing her share according to her strength. They kept steadily at work without haste or fuss. Each of the cows was known by her looks, character, and name. The…

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