NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2085, 8 February 1894, Page 6

NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

We hear a good deal nowadays of the bot or gadfly, which appears to have The made its way pretty well all Bot Fly. over the colony. The bot fly is another of the pests which we have to accept as the price of civilisation, for while as yet the country was in its native state there were no pests to make the farmer's life miserable. New Zealand was a land long isolated from the world, and wonderfully free from either animals or plants inimical to man. The most formidable animal was the Maori or water rat; and the tribe of insect pests was limited to the mosquito and the sand fly. Now, however, as the French say, we have changed all that, and all the insect pests gathered together from the four winds of heaven have descended upon our shores. This is the result of rapid ocean transit and intercommunication with other nations. The horse bot fly is comparatively a recent introduction ; but like all the pests that get a foot or root hold hrre, this insect bids fair to become numerous and widespread. There are three well-known varieties of the bot fly. Tho horse b,ot fly seeks the horse as its host.- The impregnated female approaches the horse on the wing, poising her body in very nearly a vertical position, and by means of her curved tail, which is lengthened for .the purpose, deposits her eggs, darting upon the horse to do so. A favourite position is the inner side of the foreleg, or behind the shoulder, or the extreme ends of the hairs of the mane. After remaining attached to the hair of the horse for four or five days, if the weather is warm the larva? are hatched. If the horse in licking itself touches the eggs, the covering is thrown open and an active litfle worm adheres to the animal's tongue, and is conveyed to the stomach with the food. The larval worm further develops in the stomach, and clings to the membranes by means of two hooks, between which the mouth is situated. So firmly does it adhere that if an attempt is mafe to unhitch it the hooks will break or the body sever, but it will not quit its hold. There the bots remain throughout the winter till the spring time, when they disengage themselves, and in time pass on along with the dung to the ground. The worms soon shrivel up on the ground, and change to the chrysalis or grub stage ; and after a few weeks the winged fly comes forth to renew the cycle cited above.

Another bot, even more troublesome to the horse, is the fundament bot. Another The fly deposits its eggs after JJot. the manner described above ; but the position chosen is the mouth, £elect ; ng the corners of the mouth or the lips. These flies hide in the grass, and when the horse is feeding dart upon him and deposit their eggs, poising themselves as described abbve. Immediately after a fly has so touched him, the hor c e rubs his mouth against his forelegs, or the ground, exhibiting a considerable amount of excitement the while, for instinct warns him of his danger, to say nothing of the itching produced. The lame inhabit $he stomach in the same way as the other, and remain the same length of time ; but instead of being quite cast out, they remain more or less within the anus, adhering to its soft lining, producing excessive and* constant irritation. A certain sign that a horse is suffering |rom this bot is when he persistently rubs his breech' against ahy"obs£aele at band, The third kind of h.Qrae bofi is not

so common. The flies deposit their eggs on the lips of the horse, causing great pain by stinging. The larvae invade the stomach of the horse just as the others do. Without going to the extreme of asserting that bots are always harmless, it may be safely asserted as the unanimous opinion of veterinary surgeons the world over, that they are comparatively harmless, and that when they do become injurious, it is almost always preceded by some morbid condition of the digestive organs. This may either arise from disease, or from enormous accumulations of bots, which are sometimes so great as to completely block up the pyloric orifice, or opening from the stomach into the intestines.

I find this annual so useful and interesting that I should like it to be more The widely known and appreciated, Live Stock hence this note. It is published Journal by Vinton and Co., London, at Almanac, the price of Is, and contains

nearly 300 pages of matter of interest to stockbreeders and fanciers of all kinds of animals pertaining to the farm and to country life. The volume just recoived is for the year 1894, and is compiled on the same lines as previous numbers for years paßt. For the most part the contents comprise short, pithy articles upon the history and progress of each and every important breed of the various kinds of stock, written by well-known breeders of Great Britain aud Ireland. To begin with, there are 12 articles dealing with horses, horsebreeding, horse-fihoeing, the chief horse sales, and the prize-takers during the past year. Among many well-written and instructive articles I notice one by Mr John Marr, Cairnbrogie, Aberdeen, a name familiar to colonial breeders of Clydesdales. The article deals with "Weight in Clydesdales," and points out that the present state of the British market for draught horses, and also the prospect of the trade in the future, should induce breeders to pay more attention to weight in the Clydesdale than they have been doing of late years. The writer contends that undue prominence has been given to animals with " a bit of quality," and while on the lookout for comparatively trifling matters — such as "distinct in the pasterns " and " keeping the hocks together "" — • judges have overlooked sound, useful, heavy horses that, though a little deficient in these points, were worth much more for all-round purposes.

A Fellow of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons has a searching little Up-to-date article upon modern horse-Horse-shooing, shoeing, and, as usual, puts forward theories at variance with the time-honoured customs in this matter. By the way, was there ever an article on this subject which did not find fault with the existing methods and show wherein they are radically at fault P I quite agree with the writer in that he maintains that any one kind of shoe is not applicable to all kinds of hordes, under all condttiqns, and to all classes of feet, and I also agree with the writer in commending the sense of the shoeings mith, who, when asked what he considered the best method of shoeing a horse, replied, "First show me the horse." The writer gives a number of sensible rules to be followed in shoeing, and I cannot do better than commend them to the notice of readers of these notes. The cattle breeds all receive attention, and there is also a very sensible article upon the influence of food on milk, which contains a lot of information in a short space ; and another advocating the keeping of milk records. A sketchy notice of " Shorthorns in 1893 " shows that this breed still maintains its all-round qualities, and is as popular as ever. An illustration of a two-year-old shorthorn heifer, Timbrel XXIII, first prize-taker and champion in the Royal and all other important shows last year, proves that the breed is not neglected, for this two-year-old is a magnificent specimen. A summary of auction sales for 1893 shows that 1619 pedigree shorthorns were sold at an average price of £25, the highest price being £200 and the lowest £2. Sheep are not neglected in the Almanac, and the subject is opened with some instructive remarks upon " Wool, and Its Preparation for Market," by an expert. The writer of an article upon "Shropshires in 1893" says that the breed stands unrivalled as an economical producer of the highest class of mutton and for crossing purposes all the world over, and has, he says, a great future before it. -This is a debateable question, especially as regards the words '• all the world over," which, methinks, ia claiming rather too much for any breed.

The porcine section of the work opens with

'•Bacon-curing on the Farm/ Miscellaneous which goes to prove that many Items. farmers have still much to

learn in that operation. The " Management of Young Figs " tells us nothing new that I can see, but may be useful for beginners in pig-farming. Then follows a glance at sundry breeds of dogs, and the fattening of poultry, accompanying which latter article is a portrait of a splendid silver : grey Dorking cock. Sieging canaries come in for a share of the Almanac's attention, and the concluding pages are occupied by a list of live stock societies, pedigree records, and & breeders' directory containing names of 500 prinpipal stockbreeders of Great Britain and Ireland. There are numerous portraits of liy.e stock, which are exceedingly well executed, but that of an Arab stallion, Kahalet, does not by any means show the fine bone and graceful lines of my own ideal of a typical Ar.ab stee^.'

Milk ia a product that varieg greatly both ag to quality and quantity. There flic Procjuc:- is no standard, as th.c milk pf tlort of no single cow can be absatiood Milk. lutely compared with that

of any other cow; and the milk of any cow varies with the kind and quantity of the food supplied. A Scottish experiment bears this out in a striking manner. Four cows— two Ayrshires and two Jerseys — were selected for experimental feeding. At first the cows were fed upon a diet of 81b maize and cotton cake, with the addition of some hay and roots. Afterwards they were fed on maize alone, when the milk supply was found to be less, but the percentage of fat was practically the same. During the third month the cows were once more fed on maize and cotton cake, when the milk immediately jumped up in quantity, but the quality remained the same. The variation in the different cows was very little. The fat in the milk varied from day to day. A cow might give a certain quantity of fat one day and the next it would be increased or diminished. The drop might be 2\ per cent., and the next day it might be as far above it. This was noticed in every cow.* In another experiment various kinds of feeding stuff wefe tried. Small quantities and very large quantities were given. During the first month 21b linseed meal was given along with lQlb timothy hay and 20Jb good silage. Next month 61b ~ maize cob meal and 41b bran we're giyeii. Next month this quantity was' doubled, when the -milk yield decreased. A still 1 further increase of food' was met' by a farther decrease of milk, the experimentis go' tg shqw %»t systematic} feeding la the tyjstj fqg

cows completely stall-fed ; but in our climate the open field is the best, and if the solid food is mixed with a percentage of green feed the results will be the more satisfactory. Agiucola.