Useful to Know.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 850, 15 June 1888, Page 18

Useful to Know.

The American Cultivator recommends a mixture of hydraulic cement and skim-milk for painting farm buildings and fences. The oement is placed in a bucket and sweet skim-milk stirred in until the mixture is of the consistency of cream. The proportions are about one quart of oement to a gallon of milk. Color may be added if desired. This paint is cheap and durable. For inflamed udder in cows the following recipe will be found useful; mix an ointment of good consistence for general use : Lard, lib ; linseed oil, ilb ; saltpetre, 2oz ; camphor, loz; turpentine, loz; Goulard’s extract, loz ; laudanum, loz. Venice turpentine is the best to use, as it will mix more readily with the other ingredients, and will not lose strength so much during the heating process. -

Animals given to rubbing the hair off their tails may be treated as follows : Wash the tail well with carbolic soap frequently, tie some gorse against the wall, or wherever the pony rubs against. This will prevent it from indulging in the habit. Useful Books for Farms. We are asked for the best veterinary work on horse, bullock, and pig—one suited to a farmer. If you write to Tindal, and Co., London, they will send you their catalogue. • The Practice of Veterinary. Medicine,’ by E. Courtenay, would, perhaps, serve you ; or if you prefer a book by an agriculturist, who speaks by experience of general management, and of treatment by quoted authority, Pringle’s ‘ Veterinary Hand-book,’ published by PurdoD, of Dublin, is a good work. A singular ease is reported in the Agricultural Gazette as under ;—I have a huefe. ney foal that was healthy up to the end of suckling. It was put in a small house for the weaning; fed on hay, oats, and bran—as much as it would eat. The body became very large—too largo for a healthy appearance. It cats ravenously, but does not get flesh. When it runs out the body seems to be of great weight; it has no spirit to run. It drinks largely of water. Do you think it is suffering from round worms ; if so, what shall I give it ?—The foal is probably suffering from indigestion, and there may also bo worms affecting it. A few mashes of boiled linseed should be given, with Bcalded oats ; and a lump of rook salt should be put in some place where the foal can have easy access to it. A blanket over the body would do no harm, and, if possible, the animal should be sheltered in a comfortable shed or stable. F.

Horses with Worms.- —* A Horse Breeder’ says :—I have some carting colts about six months old that are infested with lone white worms. The colts are lying out, and I have no means to house them.

It is of tho first importance that the colts be removed from the pasture and placed in a warm yard or shed, where they should receive a liberal allowanoo of corn, bran, and chaff. After being so treated for a weefc or ten days, a dose of turpentine and linseed oil may be given to each of them after twelve hours’ fasting. • Should this not be successful in expelling the worms, try tho effects of sulphate of iron in the food morning and evening, and repeat the turpentine draught after the lapse of three weeks from the firsi dose.—W. A.

Modern veterinarians do not attempt the treatment of cataract at all. Not that there is any difficulty in operating on the eye of the horse in the same way as on the eye of the human subject, but chiefly because there is no practical method of adapting glasses to the eyes of the horse, and without them

the eyes which have been operated on for cataract would ouiy enable the horse to see distorted images of common things, and cause him to shy. There does not seem to be any doubt in the. practical men that a totally blind horse is a more useful animal than cr.e with defective sight.—The Field. Buhscb, like almost ail other insecticides, is ajmost always applied in a decidedly wasteful manner. The genuine art cles is strong enough to be entirely effective in killing almost any kind of insects, even when thoroughly mixed with five times its bulk of flour, air-slacked lime, soot, finely sifted ashes or other dust-like material. H it Water for Plants. —lt is a fortunate circumstance that a plant will endure a scalding heat that is fatal to most of its minute enemies. Water heated to the boiling point, poured copiously over the stem o:an enfeebled peach tree, and allowed to stand about its collar, will often have the happiest restorative effects. Trees showing every symptom of the yellows have often been rendered luxuriantly green and thrifty again by this simple means. The heat is, presumably, too much for the fungus which had infested the vital layers of the tree, immediately beueath the outer bark. The London florists recommend the use of hot water, up to 135 degrees Fahrenheit, as a remedy when plants are sickly, owing to the soil souring—the acid absorbed by the roots acting as a poison. The usual resort is to the troublesome job of repotting. W hen this is not necessary for any other reason, it is much simpler to pour hot water freely through the stirred soil. It will presently come through tinged with brown. After this thorough washing, if tho plants are kept warm, new root points and new growth will soon follow. A lady friend had a fine calla in a 3-gallon pot, which showed signs of ill-health. On examination, the outer portion of the filling was found mouldy, it being in large part fresh horse manure. As repotting was inconvenient, the plant being in flower, hot water was freely used. It killed the mould, and the plaut began to revive and was soon all right.—Vick’s Monthly. V, A Point for Irrigation. —Tho roots of all trees and plants have myriad mouths, but these mouths do not eat. No plant can digest a particle of solid food. The roots simply drink, andin doing so they take up food that water has dissolved from the soil. It matters not -how rich the soil may be ; without moisture nothing oan grow upon it. This is one of the simplest of facts known to botanists and embraces the whole philosophy of irrigation. ( If everybody would bear it in mind one of the chief prejudices against irrigation would be swept away.— Marysville Appeal.