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away and the heart flabby. Traces of poison were easily detected. The 
groom, on being interrogated, confessed that for two months he had 
been giving to each horse twice a week a dose of powders sufficient to 
cover a half-penny, the powder being compound of arsenic and copperas. 
The lazy groom doubtless calculated on saving himself labor in curry- 
ing the animals by means of drugs which should make the animals’ coats 
clean and bright. There is a tendency among grooms of horses kept 
for pleasure-carriages and in livery-stables to use nostrums, the effect 
of which cannot be otherwise than destructive upon the health and vi- 
tality of the animals. Farmers generally are very little disposed to 
such destructive quackery. 
IRISH CATTLE-TRADE.—Official statistics show that the average ag- 
eregate value of the cattle, sheep, and swine furnished by Ireland for 
the English markets is over £12,000,000 or $60,000,000. Complaints of 
disease among Irish cattle have, upon investigation, resolved themselves 
into three categories: 1. Injudiciousand cruel driving ; 2. Filth-saturated 
holds, cattle-lairs, and disease-infected railroad-trucks; 3. Exposure, 
starvation, and consequent exhaustion. A reform in the methods of 
transportation is loudly demanded. A strong movement is on foot to 
compel steamer and railway companies to observe some sanitary regula- 
tions; to cleanse their trucks; to provide ample room for the comfort- 
able shipment of animals, and to apply disinfectant chemicals to remove 
the germs of organic disease. 
GROWING WOOD FOR FUEL.—A Canadian farmer, about twelve years 
ago, planted six American cottonwood-trees, and one silver Abele pop- 
lar, on seven square rods. Lately cutting them down and preparing 
them for fuel, he realized four cords of nice wood. An acre at the same 
rate would have yielded eighty cords. 
Crops oF InpIA.—The northwest provinces of India are almost 
exclusively agricultural. The staple crop is wheat, which is often 
grown year after year on the same land till the average falls to 3 or 4 
bushels per acre. The late crop of the Indian Empire was about 
average, or 12 bushels per acre. A field of good land, cultivated by a 
native, yielded 17 bushels of grain and 14 ewt. of straw per acre; but 
this is a very favorable specimen of Hindoo farming. A field of poor 
land in the vicinity cultivated by an Englishman, with an English 
plow, averaged 19 bushels per acre of grain and 17 ewt. of straw. A 
third field, manured with crushed bones, produced 284 bushels per acre 
of grain, besides 30 cwt. of straw. A fourth field, fertilized with a little 
stable-manure and village-sweepings, averaged 36 bushels of grain and 
48 ewt. of straw per acre. The third and fourth fields were broken 
deeply with an English plow, and subsequently widened with a Hindoo 
plow, which makes a tolerable cultivator. 
Industry being but little diversified, home markets are few and unim- 
portant, and access to foreign markets somewhat precarious. This 
causes low prices and consequently great misery among the cultivators, 
whose returns are insufficient for their taxes and living-expenses, small 
as the latter are. The large crop of 1875 cut down prices of wheat to an 
average of 55 cents per bushel in twelve northwest provinces, against 78 
cents in 1874. The Indian government has contemplated the revival of a 
former practice of the Hast India Company, viz, to make remittances 
for home charges in England in wheat instead of cash. The effect of 
government purchases would be to raise the local markets to a scale of 
living-prices. 
The natives succeed very poorly with root-crops, their turnips being 
