NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3330, 9 January 1918, Page 8

NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

Attention is directed to the need of conserving all the feed possiblo Farm Work for winter use. The enfor January, siling and haymaking of suitable grass foodstuffs should bo undertaken. Root crops warrant; the greatest of care, thinning, and inter-cultivation on all possiblo occasions. Sowings made now of Cape barley or with vetches will come in ae useful feeding when the grass is going off. and prove invaluable for milkers. The horse hoe should bo kept moving between turnip rows till the horse finds it difficult to get along. Spray potatoes, and provide against blight. Now is the time to cut the Canadian thistles >t -if labour can be secured. Cocksfoot seed this year is worth saving, the quality being good and the price right. Overhaul all harvest machines and attend to necessary repairs in time. Towards the end of the month some weaning of lambs will occur, Avhen the chance should bo taken of going through the ewe flock, and cull mark all faulty wool sorts and those of ill-conformation, etc., and fatten them off. Mark some of the best-woolled. besteonstitutioneel ewe lambs to take their place, and go in for a_ level-looking lot of sheep, capable of yielding next year something extra in the way of wool. Why bo satisfied with the other man's rejeots? After weaning, the ewe flock can live " hard," and do the cleaning up on the stubbles, etc., and be allowed at least two months' rest ere tupping time comes along. See to the rams' feet. The dehorning of all dairy calves, excepting. show and stud animate, may well bo considered. Provide

plenty of clean watej 'or pigs, and avoid waste of any description.

It is an old superstition that a cow may swallow or lose her cud. "Chewing The- basis for this is that the Cud." when cows are sick they sometimes will not chew their cud, and various cures and sometimes inhuman practices are ignorantly "adopted 'to overcome this trouble. It is the chewing of the material previously swallowed that is termed "chewing" the cud." Hoard's Dairyman, in an explanatory note, states: "The cow's stomach consists of four parts—the xumen or paunch, the reticulum or honoycombe, the omasum or manyplies, and the abomasum or true stomach. When cropping grass or taking iii other food the cow simply chews it sufficiently to pass it down the oesophagus and into the rumen or paunch. Tho material is then held there until a convenient time for ruminating or, as it is popularly known, 'chewing her ciic!.' In the paunch the food is passed back and forth with a churning motion and fermentation takes place. During this process a bolus (cud.) is there formed and passed back to the mouth by tho combined action of 'the paunch and the reticulum for real mastication (chewing). According to one investigator, this bolus or cud ordinarily weighs from 3oz to 4oz, and the'cow takes not quite one minute to chew it. This same authority estimates that tho cow spends at leaet seven hours out of 24 in tne rcchewing of her food. The chewing of the bolus or cud mixes the food with saliva and prepares it for final digestion in the true stomach (abomasum). When cows are fed grain alone, it sometimes happens that the food will b 5 passed directly_ into the true stomach without going into the paunch and there being formed into a bolus and rechewed. This does not permit of proper digestion, and is one of the reasons for feeding heavy concentrates with bulky concentrates or roughages to avoid, insofar as possible, this < improper handling of the feed. The rccticulum and amasum secrete no digestive juices. The function of the former seems to be to collect material which does not pass further along the digestive tract, and to assist the paunch in raising the cud to the mouth. It is in this part of the stomach that nails and .other foreign material are often found on slaughter. After _ the _ cud has been rechewed the material is _ passed to the amasum, where water is squeezed out and the food made finer. From this;, the third etomach, the food is passed into the abomasum, or true stomach, after which the digestive process continues as with other animals that have but the one stomach.

It is not an uncommon "thing at this season of the year to find The Foal and mares with foals at foot Heated Milk, doing a certain amount of work on the farm. The foal probably may be shut away from the mare until knocking-off time, with some danger of the foal drinking while the mare is in a heated condition. In answer to a query in regard to this matter Veterinarian Place (South Australia) says that "it is burning the candle at both ends to work the mare and let her suckle. .For her sake as well as the foal's thoy should run together till weaning. If this period has to be shortened on account of work the foal may suffer, but the mare will be better. When mares and foals are separated for work, and come together at dinner time, the mares _ should be cooled off before they come within speaking distance of the foals, as both will be anxious to come together. Where stabling arrangements are such that they are talking to ono another as soon as the mare comes in, then it is better to put, up a temporary foal pen some little distance off. Drinking when the mare is hot is bad for the foal unless he is used to it by running with her when she is at work.

A writer in a technical ionrnal states that there is less loss of grain Thrashing when the sheaves are fed Experiment, to the thrashing machine sideways than when they are fed ears first. The writer quite credits the statement. This conclusion was based on experiments with barley and a mixture of one-third barley and two-thirds oats. In both cases not only was the number of sheaves thrashed greater when they were fed sideways, but the percentage of loss of grain was considerably lese. With bnrley the loss was J per cent, for sheaves fed sideways, and just under 2 per cent, when the sheaves were fed ears first. The corresponding for the mixture of one-third barley and two-thirde oats were a little lese than 3 and § per cent, respectively. AGRICOLA.