“Yes,” said Uncle John. “But if they were pounded up and put into a vessel with water, the water would take out much of the bitter taste; and then the water could be poured off and the acorn meal dried and mixed with corn meal, as we read, for either corn-cakes or porridge.” Then David asked why the people didn’t keep larger herds of cattle, so that in the long winter, when there was no other food, they could be sure of having beef in plenty. “Well,” said Uncle John, “now that’s a question--who can think of an answer?” Dick said that wolves would come and kill the cattle; and Joe said that enemies would come and steal them. “Those are both likely answers,” said Uncle John, “for, of course, it is harder to guard a large herd than a small one--but, can’t some one think of a better?” David said he expected it was hard to keep cattle in the winter, if the people had no byres for them, and no hay to feed them with. “That is a good notion,” said Uncle John, “the people couldn’t take a cow down the passage into a pit-hut, though no doubt they built cowsheds of some sort inside the wall of the village. But cows can’t live on nothing but fresh air, any more than human beings can; and it must have been a difficult matter to collect winter forage for even a small herd in days when nobody made hay. And then, I daresay, it was not easy to rear large herds, for the cattle which the people had were only partly tamed; and some would be apt to stray away into the forests; and the more a man had, the more he would lose, both in this way and from the attacks of wild animals, as Dick says. “It is more likely that most men had only a few cattle at first. Then they naturally tried to keep for use and for breeding those that were the tamest and the best; and you may be sure that a man would not kill a cow that was gentle and gave good milk, unless he were driven by starvation. “But, of course, as time went on, men became more skilful in rearing cattle and sheep, just as they became more skilful in growing corn. And so it came to pass that people had always food at home, without needing to hunt the wild deer, except for amusement; but that was not for a very long while after the time we have been reading about.” Then Dick wanted to know about the corn that Crubach sowed. Where did it come from? Was it wild corn? Uncle John said that was a hard question, and one that even learned men had never been able to answer completely. There is no wild corn in this country, he said, and the original stock of the corn that Crubach and his neighbours had must have been brought from some other country a great many years before Crubach lived. “What are pig-nuts like?” Dick asked. “You dig them up in fields, with an old knife,” said Joe, “a white flower grows up from them, earlier in the summer than this. They don’t have a shell; they are like little potatoes, and taste like a nut but are rather tough.”