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Waikato Times, Volume I, Issue 13, 30 May 1872, Page 2

An editor, in vindicating' the character of a friend who had been nailed for the crime of sheep-stealing, thus defended him: —We have known Mr. Thomas for twelve years. Our acquaintance commenced with the great equinoctial storm which blew down our grandfather's barn. At that time he was a youug man in the prime of life, and, we think, raised the best marrow-fat peas we ever ate. He was a good mathematician, kind to the poor, and troubled with fits. In all the relations of & husband, father, uncle, and trustee of com-1 mon lands, he has followed the direct standard i of duty. Mr. Thomas is at this time fortythree years of age, slightly marked with the small dox, an estimable- citizen, a church member, and am an of known integrity for tea years. And, as to sheep stealing, that he would have done it if he- could get an opportunity is without foundation in point of fact*. Mr. Thomas could have stolen our lead-pencils several times, but he didn't do it."

SA.LT for she is p. By J. Pottef, Veterinary Surgeou to. the Government of is' «w South Wales. Sinck the publication of myseries of pa person sulphate of iron, I have received numerous questions about an It At first sigh* it appears that'but little could be said about so common and bo useful an. article; certainly one of th&most essential .agents in the animal economy, always found in the systems of most animals, in one form or another. Its chemical and phys : cal powers are very great and very varied, no agentknown is better able to keep in a ...fluid state the fibrin ami. albumen of the body. Casein, another constituent of tho blood, and an agent which is almost invaluable. may be made and kept liquid by common salt. These facts play a moat important pari in the treatment of disease, for where either is present in. great abundance, such-as in pleuro; where there is so much fibrin, and where the lungs are blocked up by the amount of fibrin exuded, it is of first importance to know that few things check this better than the judicious administration of common salt; and the great Italian and Spanish preventive for infectious diseases is but a chemical preparation of common salt. Salt is found most abundantly in muscle, next in cartilage, and least in bone. If then you are anxious for more muscle in an animal than bone, that animal must be made to consume a corresponding amount of salt. But the most important fact of all is this, it furnishes one of the active agents of the gastric juice, at least in many animals. Where the active digestion is to be maintained, much ! salt must be given. The actions of salt are very varied and contrary ; in small aid repeated doses it is a stimulant, that is to say, it invigorates the action of the stomach, and adds greatly to digestion; but if it be given, in large doses, say it produces a deadening' effect. Fir*t of all there is a rush of fluids from the walls of the stomach, and this continues until the salt is neutralised as much as possible ; bub this excessive drain on the fluids renders tho coat of the stomach inert and unable fo perform its duty. The matter may be better seen if I state further that the active agents of digestion are lactic and hydrochloric acids. These agents are capable of assimilating the hydrochloric acid ot tho salt, only in given quantities of it as yeast, a little will leaven the whole lump ; but if there be too much salt taken excessive call is made on the acids of the stomach, and they are misspent and overpowered, and the stomach is consequently left in. a helpless condition.'.

Salt, under certain conditions and in certain • is astringent. When we have excessive and'long"-continued urinary disturbance, salt, if .given in |Jb« doses, will pass off by the uidneys, and, by its. excessive-diuretic.; action, play the part of an« asfcringenfcr £ho lib. doses it is a purgatives except when there • is great lethargy of bowels or idiophatic tetanus ; then the same dose becomes narcotic in its effects. It is also emetic, tonic, and. stomachic ; indeed it. possesses a very wide range of action of the mo»t> contrary and contradictory kind, not only with respect toqivuitity, for, as you see,, the same quantity administered to the same animal at different times, has an altered action, due to the state of the constitution and the action of disease. More than this, the action of the- same quantity is.completely altered by. the mode ofadministration. A handful 1 of salt given daily to a ewe will dry off the milk in a remarkably short space of time. The same quantity,, mixed in hot water with a little bran, will increase the milk one-third in quantity and quality—the quantity of bran will not do it by itself. Salt, if forced down an animal's throat dry* stimulates the excretory glands, so that a great quantity of fluid is poured out. The same quantity, mixed in a little water, produces no such action. Most of us know the effects of .-alt on ourselves. Now all this is of the greatest importance to owners of sheep who consume such immense quantities, and it will be clear to many that their unguarded use of this agent must cost the owners a considerable amount of money.

liet us now look at certain facts. Why are lambs and young sheep not fond of salt? Very few sheep, until they are eighteen months old, care about salt, so that the voluntary administration.-of-"salt to them is impossible. Why is this so ? 1. Because all young animals have a large amount of cartilage in their system, and cartilage is very rich in salt, and it is by a natural law absorbed into the system, so that bone may take its place. The system, then, has virtually a mineral mine within, and is salted" from its own storehouse, so that the young animal does not stand in need of salt from without, but of saccharine elements ; hence it is much easier to get a young sheep to lick sugar thau salt, and if we wish bo fatten fast, or administer medicine to young animals, it must be done by saccharine agents. 2. To force a young animal, then, to take much salt ; would do it an injury, unless given as a. medicinal agent.

Among the present notables at Pari* is Prince Orloff, wh > is -winning the -women and astonishing the.men with his expenditure andhk horsemanship. He wears one jewel of immense value, and rides a horse from Tartary, which cost 20,000 francs, and manages it with such ease and grace as to elicit tha admiration of all.

HOW X JJiiUAJIiS ,» BULLOCK uiuVtLO. I am n<>'t ashamed to'confc»» that I once occupied -hat niont deplorable of >it!'position* ' nv>re expressively than elegantly indicated, by.the t-.-rin " a swell out of luck." My misfortune* culminated in Goulburn, where, ufter trying in vain oVery honest pb-a of <i- r g n living I at length resolved to offer my services to xmna of the email settlers, who are congregating about the township n» thick as blackberries on an Irish hedge. The lota newspaper*, upon which my expectations, as a literary man, mainly depended, were nt in :i sufficiently robust state of health to pay mo for trotting out a>y of m\ hobbies, so my prospect* in that qusirtcr, although al first. \ considered them brilliant, turned out to be more imaginative than real. This resultof my most cherished hopeH, was so sad a disappointment, that in the first burst of my despair I resolved to let my beard grow in iHraelitieh fashion, purchase a small stock of hardware, or some such commodity with my few remaining shillings, and erect a little stand for myself in the neighbor hood of the Roya' Hotel, I hoped, if once started, 1 might succeed in opening a credit account with a wellknown store there in furtherance of the design above hinted at, hut f hesitated until I was penniless. In fact my dignity prcrailed over my common sense, and preserved me for another destiny. My mission among the small settlers was successful, after a few efforts. One day, after a four hours' walk, though the bush, I arrived, tired and hungry, at the house of a man who I afterwards found was named Doyle. The master was not at home, but his wife, a f;ootl, kind-hearted soul, seeing, I suppose, that I was laked, tired, and dejected kindly invited me to rest myself and partake of refreshment. My vanity suggested that my being a good-looking fellow had something to do with the kindness I experienced here and elsewhere. But, however this might have been, I quickly made myself at home, and was soon comfortably seated by the fire, while Mrs. Doyle, with truly feminine tact and care was trying to extract a nasty splinter that had got in my hand in climbing a fence, when Mr. Doyle entered. Jfe stared a little when he saw me, and observed the somewhat familiar surgicnl operation going on, and, I thought, looked a trifle angry. Mrs. Doyle- was much younger than her husband, and a woman of some personal attraction!). A very short explanation on ir.y part and that of my kind hostess served to explain matters, and when he found I was a poor fellow in search of work, and badly in want, of assistance, his good nature got the better of the annoyance he evidently felt at first on seeing me seated in his comfortable chair by the fire in the corner. The result was that, in the end, he engaged me for the term of six calendar months to drive a bullock team. I may sate, parenthetically, that at the time of thin (to mo) extraordinary engagement I was as innocent of the occult science of bullock-driving as a sucking babe. However, my eireuinstances were desperate, and I was obliged to put the best possible face upon the matter, and, in answer to Mr. Doyle's inquiries, I thought it necessary to say that, indeed, bullock driving had never been my principal avocation, and the little I knew about it in my boyhood had latterly, owing to my somewhat ■varied pursuits been almost entirely obliterated rom my memory, and that very likely his bullocks would rind sue rather strange in the beginning. "Oh, never mind," my bullocks are very tractable *«.«! quiet, and will know you in no time. You'll have go to Goulburn wonst a week, and mayhap twice a week ; but wonst a week at least. He'll have to fetch in several loads of firewood before the end of next week im the Prince's glorification/' \ l ' The Prince's whatti" I inquired. "The Duke of Edinburgh; he's arrived you know, and the Goulburn Corporation made a contract with me to supply wood for- the grand bonfire. You say you drove bullouks before ?" "Myexpericn.ee was never groat in that pursuit," I replied, "and, as I told you just now, latterly I have been engaged iu other business, and I doubt if, in eonsequence, I am as expert at the work as I could wish." "Oh, astothat,'* said Mr. Doyle, "anybody that wonst drove a bullock team can never forget it. Gee ; wo-baek, Siuiler;" and my interesting employer made a scries of significant manoeuvres and cuts at an imaginary bullock, and in the ardour of his illestrated flourishes, seemed to be almost incapable of discriminating between jour humble servant and bis favourite "Smiler.." "You'll have the same hoard as myself and Mrs. Doyle," he continued; but, observing my look of mingled amazement and humour, be hastened to correct himself. That is I mane that you'll have plenty of good beef and bread—none of your smutty dampers - and a piece of bacon and peach-pie of a Sunday. We lives very plain, Mnistcr, but we keeps out of debt —and that's a comfort anyhow. Might ax your name. "My name is Doyle- Bernard Doyle," I replied. That was the name that came uppermost, and when I utterred it, I really did not recollect the name of my new employer. The effect was just as I might have anticipated, had I been aware of the fact. My namesake looked very hard at me, gradually relaxed the muscles of his weather-tanned face, and finally grasped me by the hand, apparently as a token of"suspected kind redship. "Come come," he said, " this is rather dry work, and with that he proceeded to unlock a cupboard that st od in the corner with an alacrity that I have no doubt derived its liveliness from the incidental circumstance involved in the disclosure of my assumed name. I may say that the interior of my newly-found employer's dwelling was clean and orderly, if it did not bear evidence of a cultivated taste, it at least spoke of easy circumstances. " So your name is Doyle," said he, laying down a square bottle of ram on the table, as my vanity suggested, somewhat proudly glancing his eye over my welldeveloped bodily pxoj ortions and stature. "Are you anything to the Doyles of Castletubber ?" Here was a poser. I knew as mueh about the Doyles of Castletubber as I did about Prester John, or the habits ot my friend's working bullocks. What was I to say r To claim a relationship with these worthy people would .-\ibject me tr> inevitable detection and exposure. Under the trying circumstances I followed the safest course by stating that I had little or no knowledge of the family alluded to, " Nor the Doyle- of Bansha ?'* continued my interrogator, " You look very like poor Johnny when he was \ our age. He listed a long while ago and they never got tale or tidings of him since. " My father's name was John," I stammered, coxering my face with my hat, to hide my very natural emotion. Mr. Doyle deliberately stood tip, took a survey of my person again, and then embraced me as his first cousin, after which lie rushed to the door, loudly calling upon his wife,'stating that if there wasn't a surprise in store for her. his name wasn't Barny Doyle. " And so poor Johnny, your father I mane, christened you after the ould man ? You're his namesake and all ; welcome I" said Mr. Doyle replenishing my glass. "Yes, I was christened after the old man," I replied. Meanwhile I was busilly conjecturing how far the ardour of " Nell}-" would earry her in her reception of me. and how I should conduct myself during the ordeal with, propriety becoming my position. I was not allowed much time for reflection. In & few* minutes Mrs. Doyle entered, and, after being duly apprised of the exact degree of relationship in which I stood to her husband, greeted me kindly, but with the utmost discretion. This reassured me very much, and I answer- d their questions about xincles and aunts, cousins, nephews, and nieces, with some evasioa. but with a self possession and correctness that well-nigh upset my gravity. Before bedtime I felt thoroughly at home ; and the absence of that tincture of reserve- if not of distrust—with which Mr. Doyle at first seemed to regard me increased rather than diminished this f. eiing. Of children there were only two little girls, and this circumstance also contributed to the comfortableness of my sensations. (To be continued). '

PLOTTGHirra EXPERIMENTS. ; SoMtf tinie since, the Agricultural Society of Eng-latid undertook to- determine the power required to open a furrow five inches deep and nine inches wide in different dasses of soil. It was found that while one plough in sandly loam required a power equivalent to 23 stones, in blue day of 52 stones, in loamy sand of 21 stones, in strong- loam of MG stones, in moory soil 25 stones —or, on the average, 31 £ stones to work ifc ; another, under similar circumstances, needed a force of only 14, 43, 12, 33, 14, or on the average, of only 23£ stones ; and between these extremes there is amongst the 'other ploughs (ten in number) the greatest possible variety. At a later- date another and very careful experiment was mide with six ploughs, the three first being Scotch swing ploughs—having no-depth-wheel—the three latter being English single-wheel ploughs. Name of Plough. Draught in Stones. Furrow, 6 by 9. Furrow, 4 by 9 Wilkio's 414 — Barrowman's ... ... 46 41 Ferguson's ..; 40 33 BevorsWs 33 27 Barrett and Exall'a ... 404 254 Ransome's one-handled ... — 284 The gentleman who conducted these experiments attempted to determine how much of this power absorbed was clue to the mere weight of the implement and how much to the work done by ifc —for though it may be good to have a rigid plough there may be in it much more metal than is required, and recently the use of T iron for beams, Ac, has imparted lightness without sacrifice of strength. In the case of Barrowman's swing plough, the whole draught being 41 stones, that of the implement drawn along by an empty fnrrow amounted to 17, or 12 out of every 30 stones ; and in the case of Hansome's one-handled one-wheel plough, the whole draught 28 atones, that of the implement drawn along an empty furrow amounts to 13, or nearly 14, out of every 30 stoues--in other words, in the latter-case, 46 per cent, of the labour of ploughing is spent in the mere movement of the machine by which the operation- is performed. It will, therefore, be apparent to our readers that although ploughs are very much alike in appearance they may differ very much in work, and that, one will cost them more in horsepower than another. This may not matter to a man who has only a few acres to plough occasionally ; but it is a consideration of the greatest importance to men whose horses and ploughs are engaged the greater part of the year. —"Taranaki Herald/'