GLEANINGS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1478, 13 March 1880, Page 6

GLEANINGS.

As a general rule, when American farmers use bone-dust they apply too email a quan. tity to snow decisive results. Thru, in improving pasture, a hundred pounds or so nrghfc not show much good result, because tho growth being removed daily the increase is not readily recognised. Only think, if a pasture season be considered one hundred and fifty days, then a ton increase of feed per aero ia about thirteen pounds a day over an acre. In England, where bone- manuring Is in favour, large quantities are used with advantage. Profeisor Tanner recommends bone-dust*, applied at the rate of one ton per & ere in the autumn, for the improvement of I grass lands. — Scientific Farmer. A French contemporary states that if a little chloride of lime be spread on the soil, rats, mice, and insects will at once desert it. Plants may be easily protected by it from insect plagues by simply brushing over their stems with a solution of it. It has often been noticed that a patch which has been treated in this vra v remains free from grub 3, while the unprotected beds round about are literally devastated. Fruit trees may be guarded from their attacks by attaching to the stems pieces of tow sinewed w^"- a mixture of chloride of lime and hog's lard. Auts and grubs already in possession will thsn rat>idly vacate their position. If, when a pan is taken down to be skimmed, there is found a thin layer of whey under the cream, and under that thick sour milk, the hope of making good, sweet butter finm that cream may as well be given up, for it is next to an impossibility. If such cream could be churned immediately, and under the very best conditions, it is possible to make a fair quality of butter for immediate use ; but as a rule such cream had better be kept out of the cream jar. Oream taken from sour milk which has progressed in fermentation so far as to separate its whey will almost invariably give a strong, cheesy flavour to tho butter made from it. Young horses will sometimes sprain the muscles about fcbp shoulder- blade so severely th=\t it almost appears a dislocation of the joint, which last, however, is extremely rare. In one case under our observation a young horse, led out to water in winter on a hillside, made a plunge and sprained his shoulder npverely. Within a few hours a larfir<>, tender swelling showed plainly the nature of the accident. Hnt fomentations wero continuously applied, the swelling gradually abated, and in about ten daya the sbrained muscles began to waste, leaving the shoulder-blade very prominent. At this stage the colt walked with a rolling motion, the head of the humerus appearing as if dislocated. After the heat, tenderness, *nd swelling were abated, a canthin'des blister was applied over tho surface to stimulate muscular reoair, and thn colt was soon fully restored. In bad cases, however, five or six months of rest is neceßsary, and the affected shoulder may continue permanently flattened through lack of a full restoration^ of the muscle. A shoulder sprain sometimes ooours as a gr^en colt is stepping; in and out of the furrow in ploughing. It happens arnnng c>v*lry subject to the strain of wheeling, a»d al«o to colts Joot-e in pastures, who often injure themselves by running, or by breaking into squirrel mounds. In Franr e they use turkeys as incubators, and people travel around with them, batoning chicks. They give a turkey hen a email wineglawfnl of Bpirits, put her first on nest eggs till the effects of the alcohol hare partly disappeared, and afterwards on hens' egQB. The chicks are taVen away as fast as hatched and others pat under, the turkeys keeping at it for tm> or three moatbs at a

time. But the use of incubators is far batter, there being no breaking of eggs, no tram pling, no vermin (perhaps therefore no gapes), and no*leaving of the nest, as where hens are uped.