If a man will use the
intelligence and attention to detail in the management of stock that is
necessary to the successful running of a complicated machine, he will
find that his stock doesn't differ greatly from his machine. The trouble
with most farmers is that they think the living machine can be neglected
with impunity, because it will not immediately destroy itself or others,
and because it is capable of a certain amount of self-maintenance; while
the dead machine has no power of self-support, and must receive careful
and punctual attention to prevent injury to itself and to other
property. If a dairyman will feed his cows as a thresher feeds the
cylinder of his threshing-machine, he will find that the milk will flow
from the one about as steadily as the grain falls from the other.
Intensive factory farming means the use of the best machines pushed to
the limit of their capacity through the period of their greatest
usefulness, and then replaced by others. Pushing to the limit of
capacity is in no sense cruelty. It is predicated on the perfect health
of the animal, for without perfect condition, neither machine nor animal
can do its best work.
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