MISCELLANEOUS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 156, 4 July 1896, Page 3 (Supplement)

MISCELLANEOUS.

A locomotive driven ab 20 miles an hour will lasb much longer than one driven ab the rabe of 60 miles an hour. Thia ia true to a greater degree with horses than with machinery made by bhe human hand.

The uae of the tight check rein is a species of cruelty to horses that the present civilisation should not tolerate. .

Animals caunob thrive their besb when food ia given them at any time of day or nighb which happens to suib the convenience of the feeder. Irregular feeding disturbs and deranges the organs of digestion and assimilation, so thab they fail to make the most out of the food supplied. If food is given before its regular time there is over-loading, and the organa are pub to work before bhey have recovered from bhe previoua meal. If delayed, the animal is apb to eat too much and boo rapidly ; thera is poor mastication and digestion, and, itberefore, is loss and harm. For the man who sets hi» standard high, and works up to it, there is money in horsebreeding—for the other man a dead loss. It coeta no more to raise a good animal than a poor one, and the market today for highclaea draught carriage, road and saddle horses, is better than it has been for some time, and the supply is balow bhe demand. The fine white crysbala which are aometimes seen in the butts of cornstalks grown on rich land, have been found to be nitrate of potassium or saltpetre. For a number of years a few Kansas cattle have mysteriously died from .apparent) poison. Dr. W. S. Mayo, of the State experiment station, investigated some of bhe cases, and tound thab there was so much natural saltpetre thab the catble were poisoned by it. In one case green fodder grown upon an old hog yard was fed. The butta were bo full of tho crystals tha^ they would burn like a fuse. In another case the dried fodder from an old catble corral proved fatal. In a third case the stalks were grown on the ordinarily rich prairie soil. The leaves do little or no harm, but the catble geb the saltpetre by eating the sbalka clean.