FARM NOTES.

Otago Witness, Volume 11, Issue 2280, 11 November 1897, Page 7

FARM NOTES.

Eow Eating Her Young — "Reader"

■writes :—": — " I ci close a chppii g from the American Practical Farmer, tiie printing of ivhieh in * your agricultural columns may ben» fi*i some of jour readers." The following is the clipping: Sow Eating Her, Pigs. — I bave a sow about; a, year old with her first litter of pi^s. When the pigs were about two weeks old one of them disappeared. When they were four weeks old che lulled one and ate it. Two days after she killed another. It was then advised to give her all the salt pork she would eat. She consumed -111), and the next day killed another. She w;is in good condition at farrowiog, and has been since. Since farrowing I have fe"d her s^ps made of shorts and bran and pome corn in the ear. I would like to bave the P. F. give the cause of the trouble and presciibe a cure if there is any

Leslie, O.

J. M. Robinson,

(Reply by Galen Wilson.) The sow was not givtn proper feed before farrowiug. Tte bowtls became co-stipated, creating an abnoimel appttite. In ber vsiu endeavours to find something to relieve the constipation she ate the p ; gs in default of anything else available. Had this skip been given her liberally for one month previcus to farrowing tbis unnatural state of affurs would not have occurred. Now her feed should consist largely of tbis slop, with linjeed meal added, and any roots most convenient. She shculd also have the opportunity to get at fresh earth. Beets or turnips make the befcfc and cheapest winter feed for breeding so*s. Give them enough andtbfy will fee sure to do well. Improved Wheelbarrow. — Tiie wheelbirrow * fiords one of the chief means of (ravel and tratitporfc in Ctiina, especially in the northern p*rfc of the empire and fchro'igboufc the Great Plain. The Cbine;e form is a decided improvement on the lypis used in western countries, for ifciG so constructed that the loid, which sometimes is very great in bulk and weight, is carried over the wk-el, and not ! between it and the man who propels it. Tbe charge for carrying an average load is about Is 5d pt-v mile, but varies according to the load aod tbe state of the road to be travelled over. The ■wheelba 1 row has seatirg accommodation for four people, two en eacb aide, and tbe fare for four people is 2^d per mile. On the Great Plain wheelbarrows are occasionally seen with a sa.il set, when a fair wind proves to be a great help to the truundlirgof the barrow over a level way. Foreign Substa-nces in Animals' Eyes. — Horses and cattle commonly gtt pieces of grass in their eyes. Ifc is always difficult to locate ihese foreign matters, tbe amtnals becoming very rettive when attempts are made to examine the or«an. A 5 per cent, solution of cocaine applied with a camel-hair brush will render the eye insensitive, and the iriitating grass or other matter may bs b. ushed out before any mischief ensues from its presence. Brvkding Sows — As a rule it will be found advisable to continue to breed ftom a sow which has proved herself to be prolific and age oft mother for at lsast five or six litters, a 6 tha litters from a young sow are not so numerous nor so large at aa early age tB are piss from a matured sow. Again, a certain proportion of ordinarily-bred sows are not good mothers. Ib is thertfore advisable to retain for a time those which have proved eafcisfac'ory. Thenumberof pigs raised ' will be considerably more and the disappointments fewer. Management of Shying Horses — Horses which ehy badly are very dangerous to drive, as they m»y wheel round in a moment, before you are aware, and upset th-i trap, or run you against a wall or into a ditcb. Mora accidfnts have been c*used through howes shying than by any other vice. Shying proceeds from three -causes — namely (1) deftc&sve eyesight; (2) nervousness ; and (3) freshues3 or skittishness. Most writers on this subject say the whip should never be used when a horse shies ; bufc I entirely disagree with them on that pciufc. When a hcree shies and tries to tarn round, from ■whatever causf, ho must be made to understand at once that he must nob turn round every time he sees or hears anything thafc he does not like. If you allow a horse to stop and turn round every time he is afraid of anj thing he will soon get into the habit of wheeling round suddenly, ■which is very dangerous, not only to the driver and those in the trap, but also to pedestrians. The whip should not be used to a shjing horse more than is necessary. To keep the horse straight, fir^t pull his head well up and give him a sharp cut on the side he is making for. In order to cure a horse of shying at anything be is afraid of, you must make him understand that it will not hurt him, and then he will not care anything more about it. If he shies at steam, get him pretty close up to it, and keep him there till you see he is getting used to ifc. If he is very wild, strap up one of his forelegs ; ■ and always feed him beside whatever he is afraid of before you take him away. Observe — ne?er fail to do this. A piece of paper blown about by the wind couaes, many horses to shy ; but I can assure the reader that' this is not difficult to cure. ' I have had some bad shying horse*, which I never failed to cure by the following method :— Pub your horse into a loose box, and lay a newspaper in each end of the box, leaving the hone for 20 minutes or so, till he examines ib in bis own way, which he. will nob fail to do. You now take a lot of

paper and lay it all over the box ; take a long whip and drive the horse about tbe box, over the paper, till he is used to ifc. Then tie one round his neck and drive him about the box ; open the paper wide and throw ifc at him — gently at fiisfc. Finish by laying three or four papers on (he ground, put a handful of corn in each, and let him feed out of the paper. You now ham- ss him aud drive him over the paper in the box first ; then take him outside and drive him over the paper in the same way. Repeat this until you can drive over the paper afc «, full trot without the horse showing auy feigns of fe-ir. There is no horsa but you can train to stand paper, or indeed anything that dees not cause pain, if trained in a proper comraon-st-nse manner. — By R. Bruce in the Practical Horstbreaker,

The Best Beasts op Burden for Expiration. — " The Old Pion-jer," iv South Affica, says : "In my opiuion the most remarkable d^similitrity [between Australia and South Africa] ig to be found in the different means of locomotion adopted in the two countries. Why in Australia they should have chosen the horse alone has always been a profound puzz'e to me. The horse is the most delicate of all beasts of burden. It can do without water for uobhing like the lengthened peiiods the ox cao, and it is far more particular in its eating ; and, iv addition, is m-ire subject to disease A horse must have gcaes, or succulent leguminous plants, when it is without grain. An ox will contentedly browse on leaves of tie a s when the ground plants fail. Putting the average uutnber of d»iys for ■which horses will travel without drinking a« three, oxnn will continue at their work for five. In extreme cases horse* have been known to go without water fdr seven d«.ye, and oxen for 21. In the latter case, however — that of Joseph M'C*be in the Kalaturi Desert in 1852— patches of water-melons were found at intervals, and from these the oxen f-x*r^cted moisture. In 1856, Mr S. H. Edwards, the first white man to cro« Africa, when returning - from an attempt to enter the M&tabele country from Lske Ngami, trekked eight clear days without his oxen having any moisture of any kind whatever, and through heavy sand the whole way. Ejre, on the occasion of his gr^at journey round thfi Austwlian Bight in 184-0, wa=» six and a-half days without water for hia horses, and this is the longest period I can find mentioned by auy of the Ausiralian explorers. In South Africa it has only been exceeded by a horse which C. J. An^ersm, when in the K^oko couutry in ISSB, rode for seven diys without drinking ; but in this case the horse was actually ridden a*; ordinary travelling pice, say six miles an hour, whereas Eyre's horses progressed only sit a walk, bting pack-horses. It i? my opinion that had the early Australian explorers employed oxen and waggons instead of horse 3 the continent would have been crossed at least 30 ye^rs before it actually was, and thai; the sottlf mentof tbe fertile aud gold-bearing distric' s would have beeu antedstf d by a quarter of a century, and the economic condition of tha country very far iv advance of what it actually is. Even to the pre-ent day no one, so far as I know, has crossed the continent; laterally, either from west to east, or from east to west. And yet tie journey would offer no difficulty to a South African waggon. From Br sbane to A'ice Sprit>g4 is all ptain sailing, and only between tha.absurdly-named Gaorgiana River and the telf graph line would any difficulty be presented to the progress of an ox waggon ; beyond, the Hue to the we^t coast ia not one whit more watrrle^s than tbe ofttraversed route from Like Ngami to Walvisch B*y. Tbe difficulties that beset Giles, Warbutton, and Forrt s-. in crossing this deserturose more from want of food than waut of water, and it was entirely from this cau'e that Warburton'a party "was almost destroyed. A country through' which a large number of ordinary horses, with no other transport animals, can ba taken with the loss of only one or i wo, as in'the case of John Forrest's journey in 1874-, canuot be such a vary impassable one. I venture to say that a South African waggon and good span of 16 ox-n, with a few spare ones, and two or three horses to be used only for searching for water, would pass through this country with no more hardship than many a South African hunter or trader has encountered a scote of times over."

A Good Shihe House. — A capital description of a good Shire horse was (says the Lsed* Mercury) given recently by Me Walter Crosslaud, steward to Mr Alexander Henderson, of Bascot Park, owner of the Shire champion Markertou Royal Harold. He referred firsj to & rhyme current in the north — Feet, joints, and feather — Tops may come, but bottoms never. This meant, he said, that your Shire horse should possess good feet, correct joints, and nice, straight, eilicy feather or hair ; you have then some oE the essential points of a typical Shire — a good foundation, and the top may ba made sufficiently weighty by judicious feeding. But this is not all, he added, for tha horse should also have a robust constitution, and should move well. In short, the chief characteristics of a Shire stallion should be these :— Good breeding, immense siza aud substance, height 17 hands or over, big knees and hocks, wide feet with open heels aud wide coronets, sloping patterns, well-turned joints, straight and silky feather, short legs, knees and hocks near the ground, deep body, wellsprung ribs, sloping shoulders, shorb bick, long quarters, strong masculine character, robust constitution, and good action. The Shire mare should have good feet, joints, and legs, and should be long, low, aud wide, not under 16 hands high, having a sweet, effeminate head and a nice, docile expression and good and true action.

_ Experiment in Calf-bearing.— An instructive experiment in adlf*rearing was carried out by Sir R. Jardine on his farm near Lockerbie last season, the results of which have only recently been published by his farm manager, Mr

Campbell. Sixteen calves were purchased on April 16, and fed for a time on new milk alone. On May 18 they wece divided into four lota aa equally ai possible, and fed as follows :— Lob 1, ou one gallpu a day of new milk per calf ; Lot 2, ou one galloa of separated milk and 2 z of cod-liver oil ; Lot 3, on one gallon of separated miik aud £lb of Bibby's " cream equivalent" ; and Lot 4, on one gallon of separated milk and 3oz of oleo-marg&rine. All the calves also had £lb each of linseed cake per diem. It is important to observe that tbe milk wa.s giveu at blood heat, and sucked from an artificial teat, by which means the stomachic disorders which commoniy result from swallowing too quickly when drinki' g ftom a pail were avoided. To.rougb.out the trial the calves look their food regularly, and kepfc quite healthy. After four weeks Lots 1 and 2 were about equal in appearanc?, while tha calves in Lit 3 were slightly inferior, and those in Lot 4 decidedly so. Bath tha new aud separated milk allowances were increased to l£s»l per calf, the linseed cake to l'b eacb, and tbe oleo-margarine for Lot 4- to 4oz. At the end of another month the lot fed on oleo margariue wore still more behind the others, and ''cream equivalent, daily, was substituted. At the end of the third month Lo k . 2 appeared to have taken the lead, ai the cilves had a more thriviug appearance thnn any others, though they were not heavier or fatter than those of Lot 1-. When the calves were five months old the trial came to an end, and Lots 1 and 2 were considered about rqual, while the other two lots were behind them, aud nearly on a par with each other. Valuing the new milk at 61 a gallon, the separated miik at 2d, the cod liver oil at 6s 6i a gallon, and the •'cream fquivalenfc" at 153 per cwt, Lot 1 cost £3 Oi B'l e^ch to rear, Lot 2 £1 13 » 4d, and Lot 3£l 9s 9d. The foutth lot may be left out of consideration, as its dieb had to b9 changed ; but its food cost more than any bit the lot which had new milk. Ib will be noticed tbab the calves fed on separated milk and cod liver oil cost but little more than halt' as much as those fed on new milk, although 21 a gallon is a good allowance for separated milk, and the cod liver oil, ifc was afterwards ascertained, coold have been bought ab 43 33 a gallon instead of at 6-s 61. Tbe profitable utilisation of separated milk is oni of the chief difficulties of butter-makers in rural districts far from a big town, ami therefore the results of the trial are of considerable interest.

Milk Before Calving. — "I have often been asked," writes a prominent dairyman to the American Agriculturist, "if I would mtlk a cos with a large udder before she calved. I usually answer, No. I would prevent the necessity. A cow which gives a great quantity of milk should be kepb in the barn, aud fed oa dry hay for a week or ten days before the calf is due. There will then bs no trouble with the udder. To milk before calving is unnatural, raises the temperature, and is sometimes followed by a reaction."

A Novbd Motive Power — A gentlemsn who had often wondered, like so maav others, what had become of the old-style bicycles, made a discovery recently which throws some light on the problem. During a ramble in some woods he cams across a small s\winill, and, to hi* astonishment, found th&t the motive power for it was supplied by a young man and one of the big wheela in vogue before the safeties appeared. Tho wheel was suspended from the ceiling, and connected with the mill machinery by a belt. The youDg in»,n sat on the seat of the wheel, working the psdals with his feat, and hi fchi* way k<pt the saw ia motion for hours, while he read a book.

A WosDKßFcrt .AarfißiCAN Cow. — An official of the T.-xib Agricultural College has dhc\os€d eoaie | interesting particulars concerning a wonderful cow owned by that body. It appears that for the pa«t few years special afctenfcioa has been given to the breeding and development of dairy cows of high value by the agricultural and mechanical college authorities! "As a result of these systematic efforts we are now beginning fcj realise some of the highest attainraeufcs of • cow culture.' Yeatja JNethtrland, the cow we have developed iv this manner, has, wilhoub strain to her constitution, produced 12gal 2 quarts 1£ pints of milk pur day, and 4-lb l^oz of bufcfcer per day, containing 80 per cent of bubter fat. Her best seven-day rtcord is a» follows : — May 2, 101 51b milk, containing 22 perceut. butter fat ; Miy 3, 102 slb milk, cont.ining 2 1 per cent, buttsrfat ; May 4, 93'751b milk, coutaining 2"4- per cent butter fat ; Mcy 5, 101 b milk, containing 2 8 per cent, butter fat ; May 6, 100 71lb milk, containing 3 4 per cent, butter fat ; May 7, 100"5lb milk, coutnmiog 2-\ per cent, butter fat; May 8, 10251b milk, containing 24- per oeut. butter fat ; — total milk yield, 707 sb for seven consecutive days. In order that the vitality and productive capacity of the cow may be better appreciated, her seven-day aud 30 day yields of milk are here given. During seven days she averaged more than 1001b of milk per day ; yield for the wetk of seven consecutive days, as shown above, 707 5".b of milk. Her butfcsr yield for seven consecutive days was 221b. For 30 days her record is more surprising, iv that it shows a sustained milk flow averaging almost 1001b of milk per day for 30 consecutive days. The exact yield was 2959^-lb, which produced 85951b of marketable butter — nearly 31b of butter per day for 30 days."

Butter Pasteurisation in Denjiabk. — The pasteurisation of butter has now become so general throughout Denmark that it is very difficult:, if not impossible, to obtain any butter which has not been subjected to that process. Lust season, at the" suggestion of Mr D. Wilson, the Government dairy expert, some of the butter factories made a few boxes of pasteurised butter by way of experiment. Some of the boxes were kept in the Government cool stores in Flinders street for two or three months, and the others were shipped to London. The butter which remained here on being tasted after tbe expiration of tha period mentioned was found

to bs wLulesome aud sweet, bu^j ou some of the other boxes being opened iv Englaud ib was said that the baiter was not of such good flavour as the befet factory butter which was scut Homo unpasteurised. It was thought that this difference was due to the oce*n trip, and in order to determine whether that was so Mr Martin, the secretary for Agriculture, wrote to Mr J. M. Sinclai-, tho Rgenfc in Londoa for the department, aud asked him to forward to (ho colony a box of Danish pasteurised butter, and also rt box which had nob b?en treated by thafc process. Mr Sinclair place \ the matter in the hands of Messrs Page and Son, butter merchants, of London, and Mr Martin has received a letter from them stating that a friend of the firm had just returned from Danmark, aud had been unable to obtain any samples of unpasteurised butter, so general had that; process become throughout that country. Mr Martin intends issuing a c'trcu'ar to the Victorian butter factories calling their atbeubion to the widespread system of p%sbeur"siog butter in Dsnmark, and suggesting that they should during the coming season pasteurise a large portion of their butter inbsndad for export, so thafc the process might; be given a fair trial. — Australasian.