Farm and Garden Talk.

Bruce Herald, Volume VII, Issue 649, 13 November 1874, Page 3

Farm and Garden Talk.

NEW FEED FOR HORSES.

The 'Mount Alexander Mail' contains the f ollowing :— " To feed a horse on flour is something unusual, but the experiment has been tried with success. An owner of horses, finding them eating their heads off, had to study the ' w*>ys and means ' of providing for them on the cheapest scale, and after carefully summing up the cost of the various articles in the dietary for horses, he found that forty pounds of oats cost more than sixty pounds of wheat The latter he used a wh'le, and then flour, which has proved the cheaper of the two. He mixes a certain quantity of flour with the chaff, and his horses get nothing else, but they are fat. with sleek coats, and evidently they are partial to their fare." INFLUENCE OF RAIN-FALL ON CROPS. The report by Governor Raweon upon the rain-fall on the Island of Barbadoes, lately published by the Legislature of that colony, presents a remarkable example of the prac tical value of meteorological observations. The mean of the yearly rainfall in .Barbadoeß, on the averageof the l=»Bfc twenty-are yeare (1847-1871) is established, on ample data, at 67 54 inches. It appears that the r*iu-fall influences, almost certainly, the sugar-crop of the following yoar, but that of the current year only in a slight degree, En fifteen wet years, twelve were followed by crops more or less above the average, and in nine dry years ! eight were followed by short crops. The crop of any year may, in fact, ne measured by the rain- fall of the preceding year, with such an approach to accuracy as to give practical value to the formulas. Governor itawson shows that between 1856 and 1839 there was a yield of crops in each year proportionate, without any great vanatiou, to 800 hogsheads for each inch of rain in the preceding year. His tables prove that during the period named the formula for calculating the crop of the current year was by multiplying the total rain fall of the preceding year by 800. and adding 7h per cent if that year w >s a dry one, or reducing 7£ per cent, if it was a wet one. The Governor justly remarked that the theory of the calculation and its practical application " may be of service n>t only to the planter of Barbadoes in particular, but to the agriculturists of other countries who have tho means of comparing the relation between the rainfall and crops (especially susjar), for which it is hoped this report will afford some useful materials and suggestions.'' PARASITIC DISEASE OF STOCK. In the course of the observations which have been offered in reference to the different forms of bl vdder worms it has been made evident that these parasites, which infest the brain, liver, lungs, and other organs of animals, are derived from the eggs of corresponding species of varieties of tapeworms, the mature segments of which are expelled from the intestines of infested animals, and failing on the ground are swallowed by other animata which are feeding there. In this way it is easy to account for the presence of hydatids in the different organs. Tapeworms on the other hand, are the mature forms of the parasites, and therefore it follows, that when tapeworms exist in the digestive organs, the animal must have swallowed hydatids, just as it follows that when hydatids exist the animal must have swallowed the eggs of a tapeworm.- For example, when a bladder worm (hydatid) is found in the brain of a sheep it is absolutely certain that the animal has picked up the ega(3 of the corresponding tapeworm which infests the dog. When hydatids are' found in the liver or lungs of an or a sheep it is I clear that the animal has swallowed the eggs, |of the little tapeworm which, was referred to" j in an article on Taania echinococcus.

As tapeworm eggs may be scattered on all kinds of food, all sorts of animals run the risk of becoming infested with hydatids. Conversely, when tapeworms exist it follows that the infested animal must have swallowed the corresponding hydatid. For example, the solitary tapeworm of man (Ttenia solium) indicates beyond all doubt that the individual has eaten measly pork, that is to say, meat infested with the corresponding hydatid (Cysticarcus collulosje). Tapeworms ia tne intestines of a dog indicate that the animal has swa'lowed hydatids from the brain or other organ o.f a. aheap, or the liver of the rabbit ; sud so on through the whole list of infested animals. So long as the host is a flesh eater, there is no diih'culty in explaining the origin of the tapeworm. Hydatids or tapevoim larvao a/p found in animal tissues, therefore, those creatures which either wholly or in part subsist on animal tisuies run the risk of infection. Herb feeders, however, are also liable to tapeworms ; lambs suffer from th,em very severely, and in soine soastons much loss is occasioned from diaiTohuia, the result of the irriuunn Gamed by numbers of these creatures in the intestinal oanal. Sometimes the small intestines will be found nearly filled with large specimens of tape-worn-s. A very lar^e variety of the tapeworm alsq infests the intestines of the ox ; aiv^ i« ihe horse there are two small varieties often found. In fapb tapeworms are ao common in the digestive organs of herb feeders as ia those of flesh eaters. For a long time after the chief facts in the life history of tapeworms and bladder- worms were known, the origin of animal tissue was a mystery. Clearly they must have swallowed hydatids, aud it was equally evident that hydatids do not occur in £»rain or Jierbage. The mystery was at last sclysuj by the discovery that many Varieties of tape worm larvzn a^e parasitic to insects. One of the luost remarkable illustrations of an. animal infesting itself by swallq\\'in,g an insect in which the larya of the tapeworm resides is given "vy Dr Oo.bb.old in hia little boolj, " The Internal Parasftes of our Domesticated Animals." Speaking of the delicate transparent tapeworm of the dog, called taeuia cucumenna, from the oval or cucumber form of its segments, Ije aaya :—

" '• his parasite is very common in English dogs, and, according to Krabbe, infests 48 per cent of the doga in Denmark, and 67 per cent, of the dogs in Iceland. The animals infest themselves in a singular manner. The joints of the worm having esciped per annum readily crawl as semi-independent creatures in the coat of the dog, chiefly on the back and side. The eggs thus distributed are readily swallowed by the loase of the dog (Trichodectes latus). In the body of the louse the six -hooked embryo, hitherto contained in the egg of the tapeworm, escapes the shell, and becomes transformed into a minute cyaticercus, or louse measle (hydatid); when the dog is irritated by the lice, it attacks, bites, and frequently swall <ws the offending external parasite. In this way the louse measle is transferred to the dog's intestinal canal, where, ia course of time, it develops itself into the aexuaily mature cucumsrine tapeworm.''

The development of the worm must be very rapid, as we have found numerous specimens of 10 inches in length or more in a puppy of six weeks old.

In the same way sheep and lambs become affected with tapeworm by nibbling the lie© on their own skins, or those of their companions, or by swallowing infested insects along with their food. The size of the tapeworm does not of necessity bear any direct relation to the size of the larva, because ono of the largest of hydatid cysts (Echinococcus) is developed from the oggs of the smallest variety of tapeworm. — 'Agricultural Gazette.' FORMATION Of GUM IN FRUIT-BEARING TREES.

In the wood of a tree diseased with gum, a great number of vessels are always seen more or less completely filled with gum ; sometimes they are entirely filled to a certain length, and sometimes the gum only forma either a coating upon all the periphery or only on one side. The gum first shows itself in very small drops, which gradually increase in size and touch each other, forming small irregular masses. Recent German observers have stated that the formation of the gum ia due to the disorganisation and transformation of the internal part of the wall of the vessel, but ilia author has come to an opposite conclusion. In examining the wood of an apricot tree from which large masses of gum were extracted, it was found that the vessels were marked with areolated pnnc.tures, and with a spiral line due to a thickening of the membrane ; also that the surfaces of the masses of gum were marked with deep furrows corresponding with the spiral lines of the vessel wall, and even with small projections according with the punctures. It is thus certain, in the author 'b opinion, that the gum has poured into the interior of the vessel, and that the marks upon it are imprinted from the vessel wall In the production of gum in the cellule by the transformation of starch, it has been observed that, on the first ap~ pearance of gum in the cellule, the unchanged starch gathers in small masse 3, around which forma a thin coating of gum. Gradually the starch diminishes, while the coating of gum increases, until at last the starch disappears altogether, loading generally a vacant space in the centre of the mass of gum. Ofien the gum produced in such considerable quantity is formed neither in the vessels nor in the cellules, but in the space between the young tissues, generally between the wood and the bark, yet often also at the different depths in the wood. The gum spaces grow at the expanse of neighboring tissues, which suffer important modifications ; +he cambium, instead of producing woody fibre, forms cell .lies in which abundance of starch is depuaited, which starch subsequently becomes converted into gum. — ' E. Prillieux ' (' Oomptes Rendus.')