FARMS AND FARMERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 October 1928, Page 8

FARMS AND FARMERS

ITEMS 0E INTEREST

(By

“Rouseabout”)

CLIPPING HORSES. A SANITARY NEED. Inflammation of ths lungs is said to have become an equine complaint, in a prevalent sense, with the introduction of horse blankets as constant coverings in the stable, says a writei in the “Live Stock Journal.” The reason for this statement is found in a brief recital of facts. Nature causes the horse to shed his hair twice a year. In the spring he sheds his long winter coat for a short fine suit of hair that is more porous, less warm, retains heat less perfectly, and therefore enables the horse to sweat more freely during violent exercise in the heated term of summer. When the horse is constantly covered with a blanket, it is claimed that this process of changing coats as the seasons change, is retarded and diminished. Moreover, the outer skin becomes more sensitive, and the mouths of the pores are forced open upon the slightest exertion. This sensitiveness of the skin and abnormally active condition of the pores cause the outward cuticle to receive great draughts of cold air, resulting in congestion, that either terminates in acute influenza or positive pneumonia. Many experiments have been made to show that the horse unaccustomed to blanket covering, except when profusely sweating after severe exercise rarely, if ever, is subject to severe cold. Other experiments have proved that horses wintering in close boxes, carefully covered with hood and blanket wraps, permitted to remain for weeks, without driving exercise, within the doors of their warm secluded stalls, have been prostrated with lung fever the very first drive, when the weather has turned so warm that cold seemed to be impossible. Opponents to artificial covering have, therefore, reduced their opposition to this startling apothegm: “Lung fever came in with blankets.” In extreme contradiction to this conclusion are the opinions of the advocates of clipping. They insist upon shaving the coat off even with the skin, during the winter months, as the means not only of promoting the general health of the horse, but as a positive preventive of colds and lung fever. The casual observer on witnessing the operation, as the flesh of the shivering victim seems to creep with cold, involuntarily cries out “Cruelty” but the owner, no matter how valuable the animal, invariably replies, “Not at all; on the contrary, a positive mercy.” The mere operation of clipping is as painless as that of cutting the human hair. Some horses are exceedingly restive during the process, simply because of the tickling sensation to their more susceptible nervous organisation. The results of clipping are more radical in their diagnosis. When the rough heavy-coated horse is driven violently even in the keen cold air that will freeze the breath of the nostrils into pendant icicles, he will sweat profusely, till his long hair is dripping with perspiration. Then the trouble begins. So long as he is in motion there is no danger, but when he is pulled up to a halt, and stands blanketed for hours, either in harness or stripped in his warm stable, the hair continues to be wet; and unless the blankets, as they become damp, are frequently changed for warm, dry ones the rapidly radiating heat of the body becomes insufficient to keep the surface warm. The hair and skin grow gradually colder, till they clasp the body like a matted refrigerator. Chills, colds, congestion and inflammation of the lungs frequently ensue. The care of the ,groom is useless, so far as concerns any attempt to dry the coat, for two men could not rub it dry, and the body will become cold and clammy during the vain attempt. It congestion in its various forms does not result, the profuse sweating and long-continued wet blanket wrappings are very exhaustive, attended quite frequently with general debility and lo ( ss of appetite. Now, the advocates of the process assert that clipping, such a horse works a real sanitary transformation. Within a few minutes after the horse returns from his work, the blanket thrown on him when the harness is removed can be taken off, and the horse is perfectly dry. The skin can be dressed with a clean cloth in a few moments, the blanket again put on him, and he can be returned to his stall in a clean, warm, comfortable condition. Moreover, they insist that his appetite is stimulated, his flesh increased, his spirits heightened, and his capacity for work at least doubled. It is said that six horses clipped can do as much work as nine unclipped. But these are not all the beneficial results urged by advocates of this treatment. They insist that it is a panacea for colds, pneumonia, and rheumatism. The cold coat of winter hair, thoroughly wet with perspiration, may directly produce all these complaints when the horse is not properly clothed; but the reverse treatment of denuding the hide of its natural coat, perfect as it is in preserving warmth over every square inch of the body and extremities, and substituting therefore the contrivance of a blanket, that does not even cover the carcase much less the extremities, is one of the irrational mysteries not susceptible of scientific explanation. It certainly does increase the appetite, both of greedy and dainty feeders alike. But this is by no means a healthful indication. The fat of the system is simply carbon stored, to be consumed in keeping up the required warmth of the system in the cold seasons. The winter coat acts in conjunction with the fat to promote the same result. Now, when the coat is removed, the appetite is abnormally stimulated, and the digestive organs are more seriously taxed to supply such an excess of fat and heat as will compensate for the loss of the winter coat. The question then arises, whether overloading the stomach produces more incurable disorders than the wet winter coat, even as it is ordinarily treated.

FERTILISERS ON WEST COAST. A large number of the farmers on the West Coast are going in for topdressing their grazing lands. It is stated that this season more chemical fertiliser has been sold in the district, than ever before. Blood and bone, super, green bone, and nitrate of potash appear to be the farmers’ choices.

A VALUABLE FERTILISER. BASIC SLAG FROM BELGIUM. One of the most valuable fertilisers that has come into general use in recent years is basic slag, a by-product of the steel industry. The chief source of New Zealand’s supplies of basic slag is Belgium, whose steel mills produce high-grade slag of high solubility. In an address to farmers during his recent visit to the Dominion, Sir John Russell, director of Rothamsted research station, and an eminent authority on soils, said basic slag owed its fertilising value to its phosphate content, and also to certain other elements which were not exactly known. Figures supplied by Mi’ Armand Nihotte, Consul in New Zealand for Belgium, show the growth of the export trade of Belgium in artificial fertilisers as follows: —

By far the greatest part of the above production was sent to Germany. Last year 47,000 tons of basic slag was imported from Belgium into New Zealand. The bulk of the basic slag production in Belgium comes from the great steel mills of the John Cockerill Company, of Seraing, which bears the name of its English founder, last year celebrated its centenary, and to-day employs 10,000 workers. Mr Nihotte recently received from Brussels a copy of a report to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, from the John Cockerill Company, on the quality of the basic slag produced for the New Zealand trade, which is of interest to Dominion farmers. The report states that the total annual output of the Cockerill works is approximately 100,000 tons of basic slag, containing an average percentage of 17 to 19 pel’ cent, of totally soluble phosphoric acid in mineral acids, with a minimum of 85 per cent, of solubility and fineness. “Until now,” continues the report, “we have placed very little slag in New Zealand on account of the sales conditions imposed over there, and especially ‘ because the richness of our slag in phosphoric acid, soluble in citric acid 2 per cent. Wagner process, enables us to place the totality of our output in countries buying on tnat basis. With 4 regard to the sales conditions, it is necessary to remember that basic slag is not a manufactured product. It is only a by-product of the fabrication of steel. It is this last fabrication which is regulated and dosed by the producers and analysis of the by-product, the slag, being what it can be in the conditions where hie producer has judged that the elaboration of the steel had to be made. The amount of phosphorus in the slag is consequently essentially variable and the imposition of a fixed amount is equivalent to favouring either fraud or mixing. “We understand perfectly well that the minimum percentage should be imposed in order to eliminate slag which would be judged the poorer, either from the fertilising point of view, or the transport expenses, but the rational mode of payment is the integral payment per unit, based on the analysis effected under Government control, or by an arbitration known to be experienced in the matter. The percentage of the slag being very variable, it is practically impossible for the producer to realise the fixed, percentage of 17 per cent., and to remedy that inconvenience, either the shipments are not made of the slag with a regular percentage, but with an average of 17' per cent., or to cover himself for the excess of percentage which would not be paid, the supplier quotes his price per ton consequently. It appears more and more evident that alone the phosphoric acid soluble in citric acid 2 per cent., process Wagner has an immediate fertilising value. Concerning the packing, until now we have supplied in different circumstances our slag in 1001 b. double bags, and we have never received any claim from the customers. With regard to the supply in double bags (16 bags to the ton), it is only a question of getting a supply of suitable bags of that type. This method of course, entails supplementary bagging expenses, and has an influence on the sale price.”

TUBERCULOSIS.

POSSIBILITY OF INFECTION.

Lecturing under the auspices of the Staffordshire Education Committee at Stafford, England, recently, Dr. Stenhouse Williams, of Reading, gave some interesting information with regard to the possibility of tuberculosis being present in dairy cows which to all appearances are perfectly healthy. During the four years he had been engaged in this particular line of research, Dr. Williams explained, he had examined 400 cows, and though the proportion of diseased animals they found was small compared with the whole,- yet in one district, out of 14 farms, five were found to be harbouring unsuspected cases of tuberculosis in their herds. The method adopted was to take single samples of the excreta of apparently normal healthy cows. Kept in a dark cellar, the matter remained infective after twelve months: on pasture the organism was active until the excreta disappeared. The lecturer said he did not think the danger of infecting pasture was great, as cows naturally avoided the coarse grass that grew around droppings in the fields. He did, however, think there was serious danger of infection by the contamination of drinking places by infected droppings, and also inside the cowsheds, where the organism could live for a long time. These tests, he pointed out, were carried out on animals that appeared to be perfectly healthy, and any farmer would* have admitted them to his herd without being suspicious. TAMING A BULL.

A source of frequent trouble is the danger of the herd sire becoming ugly. A bad tempered sire, unless controlled, to say the least, becames a nuisance. Many a valuable animal has been sold or even slaughtered because his owner did not know how to manage him. A well-known Waikato farmer claims to have found an effective solution. He states: —“I would just like to pass on to others a way I have of keeping the bull so he is not so dangerous. “Buy a chain long enough to reach from the bull’s ring to just in front

of his hind feet when he holds his head level. He will soon learn to walk with the chain between the front legs. Tf he starts to run the chain will wind around the front legs and he is foul immediately. This will not interfere with the bull working in any way. and he can be, left running in the yard with the cows, and T believe will remove 95 per cent, of the danger. Chain links should be about the size of the chain on harrow or drill draw bar.”

SuperphosBasic phates. Slag. Tons. Tons. «» 1925 .. 176,240 802,835 1926 .. 282,329 913,827 1927 .. 255,564 1,005,596