always afterward. I am most decidedly. I think it a great 

 prevention of cruelty to animals. The best way is to blister 

 the horns off of the little calves with the strongest blister 

 you have. I think any strong blister will kill the horns, 

 especially one drop of the oil of mustard on each horn; but 

 after the horn is one inch long, here horn forceps are used 

 to take them out with. Yearlings and all older cattle are 

 best dehorned with a small bone saw, such as butchers use. 

 Specialists, as dehorners here, make a frame to load in a 

 wagon and haul around the country and will stop at the 

 barn door or gate and dehorn all your cattle for ten cents 

 each, and they saw down into the head so as to have a ring 

 (a quarter of an inch) of skin left on each horn, which is 

 the best way and the right place. I think in a few years 

 more, in this country, horns on cattle will not be seen at all 

 for none die from dehorning and the cost is so slight. They 

 feed, handle and ship better, as well as sell better, without 

 horns. Try it and be convinced. 



PRICKS 

 In the Western and Middle States the common price for 

 ordinary castration is generally one dollar per head, in 

 small lots, but for yearling mules in large droves, twenty- 

 five cents each is a common pi ice — that is for seventy- five 

 or one hundred in a place. In the Eastern States the price 

 is generally double what it is in the Western, that is, where 

 there are not so many in a place to alter. Where there is 

 but one or two in a place, the price is five dollars each, 

 East, if well-bred stock. Three-fourths of them are now 

 cast and clamped; many years ago standing was as common 

 as casting. I think casting the best way, and do that en- 

 tirely of late years, but have altered nearly oik- thousand 



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