NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3511, 28 June 1921, Page 8

NOTES ON RURAL TOPICS.

Bone Meal for Cows-

Fanil animals improperly nourished are

often found-eating materials foreign to their ordinary feed. This is more true

perhaps of heavy milkers, and indicates that their rations are but illbalanced. Foodstuffs must contain not only an adequate supply of protein, carbohydrates, and fats, but mineral matter; otherwise we have abnormal appetites developed, and consequently malnutrition. Professor T. L. Haecker, who for many years was professor of animal nutrition at the Minnesota Experiment Station, kept a supply of bone meal on hand because he felt that there were periods in an animal’s life when the ration needed mere soluble ash than is ordinarily supplied in our common foodstuffs. When a considerable portion of the cow's ration was made up of corn he observed that there was a larger demand for soluble ash, and he supplied this in the form of bone meal. It was his experience that by addins a little bone meal to the ration the abnormal appetites of the cows disappeared. It would seem, from the evidence that has been coming from various sources, that the feeder may well consider supplying at least the heavy milking cows with some mineral matter. Finely-ground bone meal carries the substances which the ordinary foodstuffs may lack. It must be born© in mind that milk is rich in mineral matter, and in order to supply it we have often felt that the addition of hone meal or some other substance rich in these elements is advisable for heavy working dairy cows.

Periccl of Infectivity of Tuberculous Discharges.

A scries cf experiments has been carried

Ollt by the University of California - (says the Pastoral Review) to determine how long tubercle bacilli would live when exposed to California climatic infiu-

dices, when no rains intervened, und to what extent cattle would become infected with such materials. Seventeen days after being placed in the experiment plots tuberculous material exposed in l£in thickness of manure was no longer able to produce tuberculosis in either guineapigs or in cattle. The gt'.ine '.pigs were given direct inoculations, while the cattle were exposed in a small pen and forced to bo in a cloud of dried tuberculous matter for an hour oiueach of two successive days, anrt were also fed hay thoroughly mixed with the dried tuberculous material. In water holes, on the other hand, it was found that 637 days after exposure in one experiment and 548 days after exposure in a second that the tuberculous material is still capable of producing tuberculosis in guinea-pig* when inoculated. In the case of exposure of tuberculous material when kept moist, as in a water hole, il was deemed necessary to determine to what extent the cattle would become infected when exposed to such material. Here it was found that all of three cattle became tuberculous when forced to drink wafer taken from water holes 93 days after such holes were infected with tuberculous material. All of six cattle exposed earlier in the experiment also became infected. The practical significance of these findings is very evident—namely.- Environs contaminated with tuberculous discharges from cattle become freo from such infective materials soon after the media in which they are contained are freed from sensible moisture. On the other hand, tubercle bacilli that are- found _ in water holes, *miul holes, and watering troughs retain their virulence for a considerable length of time.

Use- of Liquid Manure.

While no one questions the wisdom of using the utmost mre in

conserving the liquid content. of farmyard manure, its use when separated from

the solid nortion of the waste is not as a rule attended with as good results ns when the two are used together. Of course, there are exceptions to this, as. for instance, when the liquid portion of manure might be employed with advantage us. a nuu'k “starter” in spring on crops which arc, so to sneak, “hanging ftro.” Generally however, not- much advantage is pained by using the liquids and solids separately. Manure is at best but poorly balanced as a food for plants. Separate the solid-’ and liquids, and the balance is worse. The liquid contains four-fifths, approximately, of the total nitrogen and two thirds of the potassium. The solids retain practically all the phosphorus. If liquids and solids arc distributed separately on the same paddock, the soil is apt to receive in places rather more of one and less of the other than if the amplication was made in the usual fashion. Where manure is stored in a pit with a cistern for receiving the waste or teachings from the pile of manure the senarate distribution mav be avoided, and conceivably a better job made, by pumping the liquid over the solids some short, time before hauling the mass io the paddock.

Romovinq Hair from Hides.

Tln> following process for removing hair

from a hide is taken from the Scientific American Cyclopaedia :—(1) Make a dilute solution of ammonia

,-incl sulphurous arid, anti place the hides in it. Coat woolly hides on the flesh side with a naste made of potter’s clay and the above solution. The salts of ammonia may he used. (2) Thick skins are allowed to sweat —that is, they are rubbed on the fleshy .side with common salt or saturated with wood vinegar and exposed at ordinary or higher temperature to moisture; thin causes a slight or more pronounced putre-

faction, and the hair can then be removed with scraping knives. Thinner skins are placed in pits with lime or sulphide of sodium; very delicate skins are coated with rusma, sulphate of calcium, or gas lime. Rusma is a salve-like mixture of one part of orpiment (yellow sulphide of arsenic) and two to three parts of lime. The preparation last described is noi'ouous. AGRIOOLA.