FARM & GARDEN NOTES.

Waikato Argus, Volume VII, Issue 515, 18 November 1899, Page 2 (Supplement)

FARM & GARDEN NOTES.

Faulty Shoeino /s a Caise of Lamknes?. —Much of tho laments met with among horses is duo to faulty shoeing. Of late years there lias been a great improvement in tho manner in which the animals are shed, but, as a visit to any country smithy will disclose, there is yet much to bo "learned among hotse sboers regarding the proper treatment of tho hoof in tho preparations for the irons. When a horse once develops sidc-botuß it can never be cured ; it has been well s;tid, ' once a side-bone always a side-bone.' Badly fitting shoes arc a common cause of side-bones, and tho horses most subject to them are heavy animals with upright pasterns. Dressing Harness.—-In order to properly dress harness with whatever preparation in being used in cleaning it, the parts should be well-washed in lukewarm water, to which had been added a little pota-h or ammonia. After immersion in this liquid a scrubbing brush should be brought to bear on tho parts, and they should bo vigorously rubbed until all grease and dirt has been removed. When the oil or other dressing used is being applied, the parts should bo well worked under the hand until they become supple. Cod liver oil is highly spoken of as a dressing for harness; it is claimed for it that it is much superior to noitsfoot oil, and some others which have hitherto been lurgely used for this purpose.

The AbVASTAGic ok Crushing Oats. —A great waste of food frequently takes plate where horses are fed with ' whole ' oats—i.e., with tho grain in its natural condition. '1 his is particularly so where the teeth of tho animal are defective and where the food as a result is not properly masticated. Young horses, when changing their teeth, aro particularly liable to waste food in this manner, and, so, too, are horses that are known as ' boltcts,' or greedy feeders. For all animals of this description it pays well to crush or grind tho oats before feeding. Some owners even go as tar as to mix to oats with chopped hay in order to secure its more effective mastication, and in the absence of a grain crusher it is certainly a very excellent method of preventing waste.

The Transmission of Colour in Horses. —Some interesting investigations into the transmission oi colour in horses were conducted some time ago by a wellknown continental veterinarian, This gentleman found that English thoroughbred?, when the sire and dim wcro of the same colour, transmitted their colour to the offspiing in about six c Eos out of ten. When the parents wero different in colour it was found that tho mother most frequently determined the colour of the progeny. In contradistinction to this it was found that two Arab horses of the same colour will give their hue to the offs| ring in eight cases out of ten. Another peculiarity about the Arabs is that the dams largely determine ttfe colour of the offspring; the Arab is usually white, and it has beeu found that in every seven cases out of ten. if the mare and the stallion are of different colour, tho foal will lake after the d«m, New SiiKi'.r-SmcARiNG Macufm;ry.— It is claimed that the latest invention for shearing sheep will throw other machines completely in the shado Tho new machine is simple in construction, and is used by hand Electricity is empkiyed to render the cutter red hot, and the rest of the process is simplicity itself According to " Electricity," the rrethod of removing the wool is to push the cautery along tho surface ui the skin. The redhot knife—if it may bo called—immediately mows down the wool, and the speed at which tho work can be done S limited only by the deftne-s of tho operator. The work is performed so quickly that the heat is no way injures either tho skin or tho wool. It is estimated that a girl, with a few hour's practice, would bo equal to shearing from eight t) a dozn skins per hour, and the cost of the current is so triflinvr—being estimated at the 3Gth of a penny an hour —as to be almost a negligible quatrity. Milk FiiVF.n. —Milk fever, which is very prevalent in has lately had added to its cures Professor Schmidt's treatment It is thus described : The' sick animal is well attended to, and the teats are washed with soipand water and then disinfected with a seilution of lysol. A tube of caoutochouc Cft or more in length, carries at one end a funnel, at the other a teat synhon, which is introduced in tho teat. When everything is »eady seven or eigot gramme" of iodide of potassium is disolvcd in a litre of walcr recently boiled, which is allowed to cool to 40deg or -12 deg C. Each quart-r received a fourth of this i-olution. At time of injection the praotition v should ma sage the quarter in order to facilitate it penetrating along all tho mill; passages to the acini;of tho gland. When the pulse was weaker Vinker gave a hypodermic injection of c ffeiwe, at the same t : me he gave a dose of aloes and saline tnemata, Hut as the results may be due to some-thing other than the iodiae of potassium the author resolved to use nothing but the iodide, and in this n->anner discovered its real value. To this end he injected the solution mentioned abovo by means of a pewt-r syringe attached to a caoutchouc tube. The results obtained were surprising Five cows thustreat-.d speedily recovered, although three of them wcro • very siriously ill indeed. Mr de Yinek, another authority on diseases of dairy stock, cmplr.ys a difft rent method of injection of the potassium iodide into the udder. He employs a caoutchouc tubo and funnel, into which a solution is poured, and alo g which it runs, and at tho lower extremity tho rubber tube torminatoi in four nairower tubes, each having attached to it a teat syphon. There are thus as many syphons its quarters, ono for each. All being in position the fluid is allowed to run, and all the quarters aro injected simultaueouslv.

A Dairy Cow's Splendid Record.— We, Christchurch Press, have received t v e following interesting letter from Mr Geo. Gi'mour, of Strathfillan, Weedons, and every dairyman in the colony should take note of the" information he gives as showing what a really good cow can accomplish :—" In your issue of September 27th you wero good enough to publi.-h an article, together with an illustration of my now famous cow, '•Tiny," covering twenty weeks of her elairy record to September 27th, and showing for the la.st week 171 n 2oz of butter. I very naturally, from my long and varied experience of dairy cows, came to the conclusion that after almost five months of continuous milking nothing better could reasonably be expected ; but lam glad—in fact, more than surprised —to find that Tiny has during the past four weeks put her previous excellent record entirely in the shade. With a cow calving in the boginniug of winter, just as the flush of feed is falling olf, it is only natural to suppose that if you want to get milk hand-feeding must be resorted to. I make no secret of the fact that Tiny received not IHII7 a v< ry liberal allowance of feed likely to produce milk and butter fat, but at the same time every care and attention, Independent of all this, however, the advent of spring and tho clover pasture has put up the iv cord both of milk and butter, with the ing very satisfactory results :—Week ended September 29th, average daily milk, -Igal 21b, butter 17Alb ;" week ended October oth, average daily milk -Igal -fib, butter 181 b; week ended October 13th, averago daily milk Igal 01b, butter lOAlb; lust Wo3k, ended October 20tb. average daily milk ogil, butler 2llb. This gives the excellenT creamery test of G per oent. of butter fat, or, in plainer words, 171 b of milk to the lib of buttor. Tiny is in splendid condition, carries one of the finest vessels I have ever seen, has been milked three times a day since calving—now close on six months—and as your readers may bo quito sure, is a great favourite with her mistress and attendant at Strathfillan,"

A GOOD WORD FOR THE STARLING.

A few weeks ago wo publVied a paragraph not altogether favourable to sl.-trlinL'S A writer in tho Christchureh Pie-s his been sotnding an hour with them, and this is what ho says :—The habits of the etarling have come in for some attention during the last few days, and it is evident tho handsome bird has his enemies as well as his friends If ever a bird deserves tho title of the farmers' friend, that bird is the starling, mid we say this in full consciousiicra that down in Southland peeplo are saying that it bus taken to pulling up the young wheat. If that is already the oaso we believe it is only hccius e the bird finds at the root of the young plant grubs and creeping things which would, if let alone, probably render the cops of little value. In standing up for the starling on account of his valuable services we have the gratification of being well supported by excellent authorities The Rev. Bowdlir Shurpe, one of the greatest living authorities on British birds, says of tbh bird :—" It does an incalculable amount of good in the destruction of. grubs and noxious iusects, but it devours a quantity of fruit during the period of the year when cherries arc in season, at which time its good deeds as a grubdestroyer ore apt to be forgotten." Another authority, the writer of tho letterpress accompanying the charming coloured plates in Cassell's 'Familiar Wild Birds ' says that ' perhaps there is no bird which does so much real good to the husbandman as the stilling.' He admits that it levies toll upon the fruit, but declares that'its usefulness to the grazier is incalculable. It feeds upon tho most destructive grubs and insects that exist, and when a pair have four or .flvo,young oucs, with inordinate appetites to feed tho number of grourd pests destroyed by them is extraordinary.' Worms, slugs, bottles —all tho tiny life, in fact, which is so hardly held in check hero-form the starling's favourite fare for the greater part of the year, and in considi ration of this aud of the largo and healthy appetites of the two, and sometimes three, broods for which it has to find food every year, who shall grudge it a little fruit? The present writer, being to some extent interested in the subject spent an hour yesterday with the starlings. A gra-s paddock at the bottom of his garden affords foraging ground for numbers of theie birds, and half concealed behiud a high fence and armed with field glasses which brought them withiu point-blnnk range of the observer, he was able to study th.>m without disturbing th:m at their dinner. A little patty of four mainly engaged his attention, as they obligingly explored the ground within throe or four yards of his post. Tho energy of the birds was amazing. They simply raced about, until one would have thought sheer exhaustion would have made them take things more easily, and all the time they hauled worms out of the ground, picked slugs out of thnii hiding-places, and generally played havoc among the creatures which aro so very much too much in evidence m our gardens. Judging by the performances of one active fellow, who found something he seemed to relish at least once a minute, the grub and insect life iu those few square yards must have suffered heavy losses at the beaks of tho hungry four, who had relations similarly engaged all over the paddock. Many a lawn owes its greenness to tho exertions of the starlings, who fiud a pleasant morsel in the grub responsible for the ugly brown patches which are so disfiguring. A suburban resident fights this grub on a novel and yet most effi ctivo plan. Whenever he sees a spot in his lawn beginning to turn brown, he puts tho hose to it" Either the grubs then come to the surface, or tho ground, being soft, they are more get-at-able. In any case, down come the statliugs and work away at that p.'itch es if they were paid for doing it, v. 6 they doubtless aro in a way, by getting a good meal. A tremendous lot has been said and wiitten about the small bird pest and the evil results of acclimatisation, but as our correspondent r marked, "the assumption that every imported bird is harmful is toj hastily formed." Wo aro not going to defend the hopelessly blackened character of tho sparrow, but after all oven that bird dors not live by grain alone. Can anyone imagine what sort of a country this would be for farmers without imported birds ? But we iusult tho starling to link him, however distantly, with the sparivw. His services aro as much greater as his sius aro lighter, aud he deserves protection instead of being killed for sale.