The citizens come to King Pṛthu with a basic complaint: they are hungry.
Food grain has become scarce. People are growing thin. They tell the king that they are drying up from hunger and ask him to do what a protector is supposed to do.
Pṛthu takes the problem seriously because, in this story, the king is responsible for whether the people can live.
He thinks about the cause and concludes that the Earth is withholding the seeds of herbs and grains.
His first response is not gentle.
He takes up his bow and aims an arrow at the Earth.
The Earth sees the weapon, becomes afraid, takes the form of a cow and runs.
Pṛthu chases her.
The Bhāgavata makes the pursuit enormous. The cow-shaped Earth flees through the spaces available to her, but Pṛthu follows with his weapon ready. Finally she turns back because she cannot escape him.
Then the thing being threatened speaks.
Earth appeals to the king by reminding him of the office he holds. You are supposed to protect living beings, she says in effect; how can the protector destroy the ground on which all of them depend?
Pṛthu does not immediately lower his bow.
He accuses Earth of taking her share while failing to produce food for the citizens. He specifically says that the seeds of herbs and grains are hidden within her. His anger is tied to the sight of people starving.
The threat remains real. Pṛthu has not yet found another answer to the hunger in front of him, and Earth is still facing an armed king.
But the conversation changes what happens next.
Earth does not simply deny the shortage. She proposes a way to make what is hidden available again.
If Pṛthu wants nourishment from her as milk from a cow, he should provide the conditions for milking: a suitable calf, a vessel and someone to do the milking. She also asks for the land to be prepared so that water can remain and production can continue.
This is the turn in the story.
Pṛthu had approached scarcity as something to force open with an arrow. Earth answers with an arrangement.
Pṛthu listens.
He accepts her proposal. He makes Svāyambhuva Manu the calf and uses his own cupped hands as the vessel. From the cow-shaped Earth he draws herbs and grains.
Then the image expands.
Other groups follow the same pattern, each choosing an appropriate calf and vessel and drawing from Earth the substance suited to them. Sages, gods, other communities and living beings receive different things through the same image. The chapter turns "milk" into a broad image for the different forms of nourishment and value living beings receive from the world.
By the end, the relationship between Pṛthu and Earth has changed completely.
The king who chased her with a bow is satisfied because the living beings have food. The Bhāgavata says he develops affection for Earth as though she were his daughter.
The story then continues into practical rule: Pṛthu levels rough ground and arranges places for villages, settlements, grazing, agriculture and other forms of livelihood.
That aftermath matters. The answer to hunger is not a single miraculous milking and then nothing more. The king reorganizes conditions so people can continue living and producing.
The chapter does not erase either half of what happened.
It does not teach that force is always useless; Pṛthu's threat is part of the story. It does not teach that Earth will give endlessly without conditions; Earth herself names conditions.
What it does show is a ruler moving from accusation and pursuit into listening, arrangement and responsibility.
The hungry citizens still need food at the end. The difference is that food now comes from a relationship that leaves the source alive.
Pṛthu began with an arrow aimed at the Earth; the answer to hunger arrived only after he heard what the Earth said she needed in order to give.