FARM NOTES

Shannon News, 29 March 1923, Page 2

FARM NOTES

USE& OF MOLASSES.

Few people realise how dependent they are on molasses in their daily lives, for molasses enters, indirectly, into the manufacture of many commodities, says C. W. Tansrgr, in the Louisiana Planter. Few motorists Avho drive over a certain road near Newton Centre, Mass., know that the road was built from molasses, but this is the case. Molasses, when mixed with lime, has the property of forming a compound that is as hard as cement. Very good roads have been built, using molasses as a. base. Whenever you have occasion to use a piece of machinery that is made from cast iron or cast bronze, you may be reasonably sure that molasses has entered into its manufacture, for foundries have discovered that molasses is the best medium to utilise in the moulding sand to make it plastic. Paints and varnishes Avhich have alcohol as a base, are indirectly made from a form of molasses. When you go out hunting and use smokeless powder cartridges, you are using a product created parti, ally from the use of molasses. MILK FEVER. Tho symptoms are those of fever generally, as indicated by the thermometer, pen feathering, arching the back, loss of appetite, high-coloured urine, passed with a groan, as if scalding in its course, loss of milk, rheumy eyes, and dry muzzle. Without. being able to give any of the statistics beloved of the bureaucrat (for pigeon-holing), a life’s experience ieads me to wink that fewer cases of metritis occurs Avhere the time-hon-oured cleansing drink, has been given. Temperature will be reduced by a suitable aperient. The purgative should not be feared because the cow seems prostrate. The one thing to bo remembered in the choice of a drench is the need of cordials with it. To pour into the patient a lot of cold salts alone is not desirable, i>ut if an. ounce of ginger, an ounce of pimento, or aniseed or mustard, and particularly a dram of poAvdered nux vomica is added, the muscular layer of the stomach and intestines is able to contract better, and griping is prevented. With such cordials an ounce of aloes may be given with excellent results. After the aperient has acted it is Avell to give a quarter of an ounce of salicylate of sodium night and morning, and if the urine is passed with evident scalding an ounce or two of bicarbonate of potash should be added each day to the drinking - Avater or food. The syringing of the uterus Avith large, volumes of warm water with a simple anti-septic relieves pain and helps to carry away offending material., For this the permanganate or potash is recommended, noAV that glycerine for dilution of carbolic acid is unobtainable. The mistake nearly always made by beginners is in using this substance much too strong. Two grains to the ounce, or a scruple in half a pint, is a strength often recommended in books, but experience teaches us tnat we get better results from a solution of half that quantity. Many membranes are irritated and made sore,, or, at least, the desired results are not obtained, by waste of the permanganate. The cavities of the body are very sensitive to chemical substances, and especially those with an avidity for oxygen, VIEWS OF ABORTION. Dr. E. C. Schroeder, of the Bureau of Animal Industry, in the course of a recent address before the United States Live Stock Sanitary Association,, enunciated some new and rather startling vieAVS on the vexed question of contagious abortion. His observations (remarks the “Pastoral Review”) indicate that "contaminated feed seems to be the natural mode of entrance for the abortion bacillus into the bodies of its victims, and other conceivable natural modes of entrance plainly lack experimental evidence that proves their existence.” Another studied opinion as the result of the bureau’s investigations is that the calves of abortion-infected cows, irrespective of whether they did or did not react Avith abortion tests djjfting the first Aveeks of their lives, and irrespective of whether they Avere suckled, by coavs Avith clean or Avith infected ‘Udders, if they are protected against infection after they are weaned, are neither more nor less susceptible to abortion diseases Avhen they reach maturity than the calves of normal coavs. The bureau also claims that they have established the fact that the bull is not a spreader of the disease. They maintain that though the bull may be infected with the disease himself, he does not introduce the germ of abortion into the reproductive organs of the coav. THE CARE OF SHEEP SKINS.

If the sheepman, however, has more skins tliau he requires for the home, the surplus should be stored carefully in the following way—pending an opportunity of sending them to the market. They should be hung up as soon after removal from the sheep as possible, and not throAvn down anywhere as frequently happens on the haphazard selection. Wash the pelt Avith warm Avater. especially around the neck and hind

parts, thus getting them free from blood and dirt. Dry the skin by hanging lengtlnvise (not sideways) with the flesh side up, over a 3 x 2 inch batten., or other support, in a shady place, where there is a good current of air.

Preserve a neat, even shape by spreading out the neck and seeing that, the points do not curl up and remain. green, after the rest of tho skin is dry. Pieces of stick should be inserted to keep the points open, and if the wool is at all damp the skin must be hung with the wool side up for a day or’so to thoroughly dry, before be. ing turned over, with the woolly side down. If they are to be stored for a considerable time, especially in summer, it is advisable to paint the pelts as soon after skinning as possible Avith a solution of Cooper’s dip (mixed double ordinary sheep-dipping strength), _ in order to keep the skins from being ruined by weevils and other pests.

Before packing for sale, make sure 1 that the skins are quite dry, and not ! likely to go mouldy or rotten, then tie them in bundles with rope or flax — do not use wire, as it rusts and stains the wool. Where flocks are fairly large sheep skins represent no small item in farm management, a and are worth careful treatment. MR. CHESTERTON ON BURNS. Air. G.'K. Chesterton proposed “The immortal memory of Robert Burns,” j at the anniversary dinner of the Burns j Club of London at the Prince’s Res. taurant. Mr. Chesterton's address wao 1 msted by means of a micro.

phone connected up with Marconi Flouse for transmission as part of the evening’s broadcasting .programme. Mr. Chesterton said that Burns was perhaps the one writer —certainly the one poet—who gave one the impression of writing slapdash and always hitting the right word. His love songs were the only love songs that were simple enough to be true. We all knew what there was to be said against Burns, added Mr. Chesterton. Anyone acquainted with rural or semi.rural conditions knew “ the publicity of the poor.” “ I could point out to you the village drunkard or th,e village Don Juan in the little country town where I lived, and it would not be libel because they are not rich enough to bring ail action ” he remarked amid laughter. “Anyone could point out the village drunkard; you cannot generally point out the city drunkard. It would be difficult to point to a man in Piccadilly and say ‘ That is the drunkard of London,’ and stil more impossible to point to anyone and say ‘ That is the drunkard of New York.’ ” (Laughter.) Many of Burns’ Edinburgh patrons continued Mr. Chesterton, probably drank quite as much as he did, anu were probably responsible for the same sort of love affairs but not for the same sort of love songs. Perhaps the most tremendous truth about Burns was his date. They had only to read the poetry of his time to realise that Burns was an earthquake; he was the most tremendous natural convulsion bringing forth fire and wind and storm that had been known for a whole century at least in literature. His work stood out like some enormous mountain or volcano thrown up by violence in the midst of a trim and tidy garden of Queen Anne. THE AMERICAN WORD “ BRITISH*'”

“ Burns is, among other things, the most striking example of the fact that the more narrowly national is a man and a poet, the more universal he becomes. It was when he was national that he was human, and when he attempted to be, shall I say, British, he was almost, so far as Burns could be, wholly ineffective. An English poet should be English and a Scottish poet should be Scottish, and neither of them should be British. Indeed, the word British is an American word.” (Laughter.) Mr. Chesterton agreed that Scots arc romantic. “It is profoundly true,’ he said, “ that you are insulted with all sorts of compliments to youf shrewdness and your stolidity. (Laughter.) In the face of a hundred glori. ous examples to the contrary you are accused of being sober. Most lament, ably slanderous of all, you are even accused of being law-abiding. I venture to say the whole history of Scotland flings back that lie in the teeth of the accuser.” . , _ There was no literature, he added which had so persistently boiled over into the romantic and even the fan. tastic. Let those who talked of the sober and solemn Scotsman read even literature of our own time, let alone the literature of Burns, and interest themselves in that literary tradition, which gave us the ciuiet domestic in. terlude of " Treasure Island” or the humdrum realism of “ Peter Pan.” (Laughter.) English literature was full of good humour, genial and possessed of a certain spirit, which he would mainly call a sort of ironical patience. But. the spirit of Scottish literature had always been something more elemental something mystical. Poems like that great egalitarian lyric “ A man’s a man for a’ that” were not the products of the French Revolution. It was a prophetic anticipation of the whole revolutionary spirit by a man and a nation that were particularly fitted to conceive it.

If there was one thing that modem Europe should preserve _ it was its nationalities.' for its nationalities were real things for which men fought and died. It was because Burns of all men went straight from what would appear to be one extreme to the other —from the most passionate parochialism to an absolutely cosmic and uni. versal sense of the brotherhood of man that Mr. Chesterton said he would ask the company to drink to the immortal memory, and the glory of Robert Burns.