Notes and Comments.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 121, 29 October 1901, Page 3

Notes and Comments.

, At the present time many horses in this district are bots in suffering from bots, and horses, the following by a wellknown veterinary expert should be read with interest : There are people who think that there is, or that they possess* a "cure" in the shape of a dose of medicine that is not injurious to horaes, while fatal to the parasite. . . . The absurdity is even more patent when we remember that not only do bots resist; the strongest acids and alkalis, the moat irrespirable and poisonous gases, the most potent mineral poisons and empyreumatic oils when brought directly into contact with them, but that within the horse's body they are lodged in that part of the stomach to which medicine does not come —the insensitive left half—and have their mouths too deeply buried in the mucous for any drug that can safely be administered to affect them. When passing out of the body, after having detached themselves from the wall of the stomach, their passage may be accelerated, but under ordinary conditions they are nob in the least affected by any remedy that would not &e far more injurious to the horse than to the parasite. The prevention of; bots is much more effective than their cure, and the time is approaching when those owners of horses who desire their animals to be free from bots should take measures to prevent egg-laying and provide for egg-destruction.

Thomas A. Edison (says the Spectator of New York), who building has invented a new made process for making easy cement, says that he expects to see the day when houses generally will be built of cement, the flowing material being poured into moulds of any required shape, style, or size, ornamental or severely plain. A schoolboy, being asked now cannon were made, replied, " They take a hole and stand it up endwise and than pour iron around it." According to Mr Edison, every builder will have a series of moulds ready for use, and when a man wants a now house all he will have to do is to select the style he wants, and in two or three days the whole thing will be " poured," and a beautiful cement house, looking like marble, fills the oill, and is ready for occupancy. Ordinary residences will be put together with wood beams, but sky-scrapers will have steel frames covered with cement. No masons, bricklayers, carpenters, or other tradesmen to stop operations by going on strike —just ordinary day-labourers, with skill enough to "pour." All of which is within the limits of the possibilities of the future ; and when that time comes what a rushing business Mr Edison's cement company will do. Fire underwriters need not anticipate that their occupotion will be gone, for there will be enough highly inflammable material inside these non-combustible buildings to furnish them employment, and probably greater profits than they now enjoy. There is an old saying among underwriters that " it is contents that burn buildings, not, buildings that burn contents," If Mr Edison can make buildings absolutely fireproof, the insurance companies will have a bonanza in furnishing indemnity for non-fireproof material —furniture, goods, etc. placed inside such structures. While Mr Edison is concededly a great inventor, and has done some wonderful things, his performance has not alwavs kept pace with his promises, or predictions. The cement boomjias only just started.