MISCELLANEOUS NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 54, 5 March 1898, Page 4 (Supplement)

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES.

Young growing fowls should have all they Avill eat, and be fed early and late,"tor they have to grow bone, muscle and feathers, and if sufficient nutritious food be not provided, the result will be poor stunted birds if they ever survive the first two months. Exhibition breeders know full Avell the advantages of pushing on their young stuff, so as to make big, handsome foAvls later on; but many people just working the 'utility' business (eggs and table fowls) seem to think any kind of food Avill do, fed erraotieaily, and even cut the rations down for' the sake of economy. Conse-. quently, one sees poor, weak birds, barely' able to live, aand utterly incapable of earning any profit for their owners. There is no need to waste food, and have heaps of it spoiling and souring- untouched about, but all the chickens will eat up cleany, at a time should be given.

Poultry runs shoaild be well supplied with grit, ground shells, Avood-ashes, 3.nd gpoAAung green stuffs or grass, fetable oft'al' in heaps make first-rate scratching-places in winter. Good cleanwater or milk (Avhen abundant) should be always on hand, and placed out of reach of the sun. You cannot have beautiful stock Avhen they aire covered A\ith lice. Fowls, like all other stock, must have refreshingsleep at night, and a perch full of lice will keep them aAvake as much as a bed full of bugs would torment its owner. LimeAvash aud carbolic will be. found a-good disinfector. Think Avell over what your runs will carry; then do your very best to keep everything orderly in all seasons.

Impairment of nutrition creates a suitable and fruitful ground for the development of disease. Chickens require different and more food than adults, because of the necessity to build up the frame. Here the'food should be well-balanced, or there will be a great waste, not so much of uneaten food, but of internal offal and bodily waste. When fowls are absolutely in confinement everything mtist- be supplied, but with liberty on a good run they procure a quantity of natural food, viz., worms, insects, seeds, lime, etc.; they are, therefore, good scavengers in an orchard.

Tonics. —I have been asked to give a recipe for a poultry tonic. Here is a safe one: Sulphate of iron, 8oz; sul.pliuric acid, loz; 2 gallons of water. Pose, one teaspoonful to the pint of water.. The following ia a strengthening mixture recommended by a poultry writer: Linseed meal, jilb; oatmeal, 41b; black pepper, i\h; lime, 141b; salt, -]lb; copperas, Jib; sulphur, ilb. Mix thoroughly and

keep in stoppered bottle for feed. One teaspoon!'ul, Avith equal quantity of raw minced meat or liver to each hen every other morning for 14 days; but directly the birds are laying to be discontinued.

The Dangers of Anthrax.— The malignant nature of anthrax was forcibly exemplified in the case of a man named Henry Balman, Avhose death was the subject of inquiry before the city coroner at Guy's Hospital. Halman, who was 41 years of age, Avas employed by a firm of skin dealers in Bermondsey, and it avus part of his duty to carry in his van quantities of hides imported from abroad. On going home one night- Balman complained to bis wife of an irritation on his- neck, which he thought was caused by a boil. As it got Avorse, be went to' Guy's Hospital, where the house surgeon at once saAv that it was a case of anthrax. Nothing could save the man's life, and he gradually succumbed to the venomous disease; Mr Redgrave, who represented the Home Office, said the Home Office had made very exhaustive inquiries into the question of anthrax, but they had not been able to discover anything that would kill it Avithout injuring the skins and making them useless. At Bristol the men were compelled to wear a tippet, which fitted so closely round the neck that the men could not scratch themselves. The jury returned a verdict of 'Heath through anthrax poisoning.' , An Inch of Rain,—Few people can form a definite idea of Avhat is imjolved in the expression 'an inch of rain. It- may aid such to follow tliic calculation:—An acre is equal to 6,272,640 , square inches. An inch deep of AA^nter on this area will be as many cubic inches of water, which, at 227 to the gallon, is 22,000ga1. This immense quantity of water will weigh 220,0001b or 100 tons. One hundredth of an inch (0.01) alone is equal to oue ton of water to the acre. Hybrids.-—Professor Cossar Ewart has been making experiments in crossing- the zebra Avith ponies, but not one of the crosses of this season is marked like its sire, and all of them are marked with greater or less distinctness as Romulus (a cross of a former season) is marked. The latter is a Aery quiet, kindly animal. He Avill be invaluable for driving or ri dingon account of his hardiness. Tbe puzzling thing in the Avhole of these, experiments is the fact that not ono of these animals is crossed like its sire, and that all of them are crossed like the skin of the Somaliland zebra. They are all very much alike in formation and type* have, feet and legs like AA'halebone, with the kind of pasterns that Clydesdale men fancy. The likeness to the Somaliland zebra in colour is rather notable, and Avhat explanation may be given of it no one can at present affirm with certainty;- -The scientific question is, Tele'goiiy or Atavism? and this cannot be ailSAvered.in a day. Judging Draught Horses.--Upon this subject there is a great deal thatmight h& Avritten in condemnation of the present too often haphazard methods of gauging the relative merits of exhibits. Writing in tbe 'Melbourne Leader,' a contributor says: 'There are very I'eAv men in the show ring who can judge working horses on Avell understood mechanical principles. They knoAV (he says) a good fore leg and a good hind leg, a pastern and a hoof, but they cannot tell whether these have been put together for . the purpose of draught. I And yet to one Avell acquainted with the laws of forces, and who knows horses as well, there is nothingsimpler to define than the correct conformation of a good draught horse as he should appear in front of his load. As a rule, the longer a draught horse is from his natural centre of gravity (through the heart) to the top of his hind pastern, if he is fairly proportionate, the longer is his stride and the greater his power, if provided with plenty of muscle. He must be able to pull as Avell as carry his own Aveig-ht, and in order to pull avcll he must have length between the parts named. Short crutchy steps before and behind may carry him along with an empty cart, but the poAverful launching stride, followed by the long lasting stride from the hind foot, pivoted, so to speak, on the top of the hind pastern, is wanted to take on the load. Breeding Sows. —One of the greatest mistakes made in pig-breeding is that of killing the breeding sows A\'hile they are still immature, and after they haA'e borne one or perhaps two litters of pigs. A really good breedingsow should be kept till she learns bad habits, such as eating her pigs or breaking enclosures. The litters from i old sowjs are more generally uniform | than from .'young ones, and start off I better. j

A Good Variety of Oats. —A farmer of Drouin, Victoria, is growing a wonderfully good oat known as the 'Surprise,' the seed of which he imported from San Francisco. The crop stands almost, if not quite, 7ft high, and the' stalks are of corresponding strength. Judges declare that the yield cannot be less than 70 or 80 bushels per acre. It was planted on soil prepared in the nsual way,. with a dressing of 2cwt. of Thomas' phosphate per acre, and the crop covers one acre and a-half. The ordinary oat crop was sown early in May and the 'Surprise' early in June, and yet, though the new vari.ety was put in a month fe&?r, it is already developing into ear, whereas the other is but 4ft Gin high, and the ear is not yet, showing.