Notes for Farmers.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2069, 18 May 1887, Page 2

Notes for Farmers.

An exchange says :—To tame the wildest horse, take finely-grated horse castor, oils rhodium and cnmmin; keep these in separate bottles and corked ; put some of the oil of cummin on your hand, and approach the horse on the windy side. He will then move towards you ; then rub some of the cummin on bia nose; give him a little of the castor, or anything he likes ; and get eight or ten drops of the oil rhodium on his tongue ; yon can then get him to do anything you like. Be kind and attentive to the animal, and your control is certain. Of tho natural enemies of the rabbit indigenous to the couutiy, such as hawks, wekas, wild pigs, and cats, Mr Foster esteems the last as undoubtedly tho most useful, as they prey chiefly on young rabbits, but will, if hungry, attack full-grown ones. On the subject of turning out cats among rabbits, Mr Foster says that the best method is to take a hardy she cat, heavy in young, or which has just kittened, out in a box to a patch of rabbits, feeding her occasionally until she is able to leave her young ones and hunt for herself; she will catch young rabbits for her kittens, which will grow up wild, and will soon loaru to hunt for themselves. Cats thus bred will survive the hardest winter, and consequently are most valuable in the hill country. When the calf is about six weeks old, or when the horn button projects about half an inch, 1 have a man to catch the calf, holding the under jaw with ono hand and with the other hand seize the ear opposite to the born to be operated on, and the calf's neck under his arm. Any strong man can in this way hold any young calf as in a vice. For further efficiency, however, a boy can hold tbe calf’s hindquarters to keep him from swaying to and fro. Then with a sharp kuilb I cut close around the horn through the skin, run the poiut of the knife down under the horn and bring it out of its socket as completely as an acorn can be taken out of its shell. The forma ti®n of the horn and its socket is rery much like an acorn and its shell, only the socket of the horn is very shallow. J t is a mistaken idea that the horn of a young animal is attached to the

skull, as anyone can boo bv examining a calf’s head alter slaughter. And while on this subject 1 would suggest to farmers who want to practice dishorning young calves, that they get together and operate on a veal or other dead calf, and thereby learn in five minutes how to do the work easily and successfully, -Patrick Kehoe, in Live Stock Indicator.

Wo notice from a recent American ournal that in respect to the destruction of the codiin moth there is bo bird to be compared to the woodpecker. A fruit grower who has had 20 years’ experience in the state of Massachusetts, Ohio, and Indiana, says ; —“ I estimate that nineteenths of the codlin moths destroyed were eaten by woodpeckers.”