TILL THE COWS COME HOME

A better title for Walling’s wondrous book about cows might be Have I Got Moos for You. There is a revelation about cattle on almost every page. Humans domesticated Bos taurus in the 8th century BC; ever since, cattle have been providing locomotive power, fertiliser, food and milk. It’s impossible to imagine the progress of civilisation without the cow: no leather for soldiers’ boots marching as to war, or for the belts driving the machinery of the Industrial Revolution. As Walling notes, the significance of cattle is memorialised in the language of money. In old Saxon, cattle were ‘fehu’, the source of today’s ‘fee’; the noun ‘cattle’ is associative with ‘capital’.

A former farmer, Walling knows cows in the grassy field, as well as in the dusty archive. He understands their value in the landscape and the way the grazing of old breeds, such as White Park, enhances biodiversity. There is so much more to a cow than being a burger-in-waiting for one of McDonald’s 36,000 global outlets.

Walling loves cows and I love his book. It intrigues and feeds just like a big, beautiful cow. Odd then that he suggests we “revere” the natural world yet “disdain the domestic animals upon which we depend”. That’s a gentle snub to the wilder re-wilders. The cow has served us well. In the nicest possible way, Philip Walling is saying it’s about time we show some gratitude. John Lewis-Stempel, farmer and writer