A farmer is a magician who produces money from the mud.

You would be much amused with the animals round the ranch.

To a farmer dirt is not a waste, it is wealth.

Milkers don’t spend half as long with their mothers.' Eli spread his chore coat over Little Joe. 'Not more than a few weeks. Sometimes one day. Maybe not even ... If you were a peeper, it’d be even worse. They don’t even get to see their mamas. They’re still jelly beans when they’re left alone to hatch.

She loved all the creatures of the farm. Each one, even a hen, was like a person to her, even more real than many of the real people she knew. Some were playful or bold, and some were shy. Some were gentle, and some were wicked. Some were smart, like Fido, and some were foolish, like the hens.

If the farmer is rich, then so is the nation.

The recognition that human beings are specifically and deliberately responsible for whatever aberrances farm animals may embody, that their discordances reflect our, not their, primary disruption of natural rhythms, and that we owe them more rather than less for having stripped them of their birthright and earthrights has not entered into the environmentalist discussions that I've encountered to date.