Farm and Garden

King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 283, 6 August 1910, Page 3

Farm and Garden

THE HORSE. A horse is never vicious or intractable without a direct cause. If a hoi"3e is restive or timorous, you may be sure that these faults arise from defects in his education. We want the best methods in caring for our horses in every way, for the better care they have the better horses they will be. We should study to feed our horses to give vitality and health, for like man, ha who has health is able to work, but the wrecked body cannot do much. It seems almost useless to say that the water used for stock should he as pure as we can have. Danger lurks in bad water. Horses are in a greater demand than a year or two ago, despite the fact that motor cars are coming into more general use. The horse is indispensible on farms and in drawing loads in cities. The motor cars and traction engines are toy costly to take the place of one horse. Good horses are bringing fair prices, and the scarcity of heavy animals is sure to increase the demand for both roadsters and general farm purpose horses. It is not watering the horses when they are warm that does the harm, it is the chilling that may come afterward. If we give a warm horse a reasonable amount of water and keep liini going, so that he perspires freely, no harm will come to him. A little and often is a good rule. As far as possible, stables should be bright and airy. Sunlight is beneficial to both men and animals, a horse brought out of a dark stable is apt to shy and become frightened. Then, where there is darkness there is often an excune for dirt, and unless a stable is kept clean it cannot be kept healthful. If it entails a little extra work it will pay ten times over One should be careful to have the stable free from bad smells and foul air, an-'l to see that the stale food is not left in the manger, as it will often put a horse off his feed. Train colts young in life to harness, but never endeavour to make horses of them while they are mere foals. A slight blemish or odd colour does not lessen the value of a horse for work on the farm.

THE MORTGAGE ON SILAGE. The wages of silage making is its chief death blow. Even around Levin and others of that string of dairy settlements on the West Coast between Palmerston and Paraparaumu, where the land costs much money, and where consequently intensive farming is the more necessary, the wages question is often a bar to silage making. On some of these farms the owners claim to be able to run a cow to the acre. If they put their claim into practice it means a lot of valuable live stock concentrated on a very small plot of land, and a good reserve of food is essential to any feeling of safety against bad times. It is well agreed that succulent silage makes a good adjunct to the dry hay, yet when the stuff becomes available there is always a temptation to turn it into hay instead. Hay is easy to cure (in a district which has more than its fair share of sunshine), it is easy to cart; and chiel of all, it is easy ■ to lift-up to the top of the stack. The extra labour and extra time or wages involved in the work of lifting the heavy green material to the height which a silage heap has to reach prove its principal mortgage. Anxiety as to temperature or the proper weight to apply is only a secondary consideration.