FARM NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1031, 2 September 1871, Page 10

FARM NOTES.

hi mE BREASTS ON HOUSES.

Many people are troubled, at the commencement of ploughing in the spring, with their horses getting severely galled. At times, the fault is in having poor, old collars, and not having the collar properly fitted to the horse's breast ; and at others, the hames are either too tight or loose. There is a great difference in horses about getting galled or chafed, and at times it lias seemed to me impossible to keep their breasts from getting 3ore ; but a thorough application of strong

alum water or white oak bark to the breast of the animal, three days before going to work, "will toughen them so that they will not get .sore.

Another excellent plan is, when you let your team rest for a few moments during I work, to raise the collar, and pull it a little forward, and rub the breast tho- j roughly \\ itli your naked hand. Try it, i and be convinced. 1 box* .\xn colic. j A farmer at Swan, Ohio, writes the I Cincinnati Gazette : — "For colic make a| strong tea of the warts from the horse's [legs. For bots give strong sage tea. I [ never wait to argue the question whether it is bots or colic, or whether bots kill the horse or not, but, upon the first symptoms, 1 make the teas and administer them, and in half an hour my horse is ready for work again. These have been my remedies for thirty years, and my father, who was an extensive horse-raiser used them for fifty years, and neither of us ever lost a hor.se by colic or bots, and j had many cases." FlliK AXI> WATER-PKOOJ' PAINT KOK SIIIXCLE ROOFS. Slake stone lime, by putting it into a I tub to keep in the steam. "When .slaked, pass through a fine seive, and to each six quarts of it add one quart of salt rock and one gallon water ; boil and skim. To each rive gallons of this add pulverised alum, one pound ; copperas, one halfpound ; potash, one half-pound ; hard wood ashes, sifted, four pounds. Apply with whitewash brush. Moi.vruKJ: i>~ voDPh. According to Dr Harsig's experiments, woods (trees) generally contain, during the winter months, about an average of 50.7 percent, of moisture ; in March and April, about 40.1) per cent. ; in May, June, and July, about 48 per cent. ; while up to the end of November the quantity of moisture increases but little. Air-dried wood (timber) contains from 20 to 25 per cent, of water, and never less than 10 per cent. Wood which, by being artificially dried, lias been deprived of all moisture, is thereby entirely altered as regards its cohesive strength ; it becomes brittle, loses its elasticitj r and flexibility. TO PKEVEXT HORSES KICICIXfi IX STALLS. "Will you please inform me how to prevent my horse from kicking in the stalls ? I have tried putting a pole across from one partition to another above the hips, but without avail. This is a bad habit, and difficult to break up. In some instances we have known an Osage Orange, Honey Locust or Thorn, fastened against the side of the stall, for the animal to kick against, to convince the animal that it is hard to " kick against the pricks," and break the practice. Some horsemen attach a long and rather heavy piece of wood to a chain and buckle it on above the hock, so that it will reach half way down the leg. "When the animal kicks, he gets about as sharp a blow as he gives, and desist?. TO ritEVE>'T A HORSE ROLLI>"<; IX THE STALL. I saw in the Rural New Yorker, dated April Bth, an enquiry how to prevent a horse from rolling in his stall. You told the correspondent to tie him so short that it could not ; but if the horse is as bent on rolling as one that I had, he will roll if tied with a common halter so short that he cannot get his head within two feet of the floor ; but the horse cannot get up in that position. My remedy is : — Put a strap round the neck, tie another rope or strap into that, and tie that in the middle of the stall directly over head from where the horse's head would come when he Jays down. You may tie it long enough so that the nose will reach the floor and yet he cannot roll. If he cannot get fhe back of the head to the floor, or very close to it, he cannot roll.