California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal. 



orses for Use. 



Ij^EOBABLY there is less money made by 



IV raising horses for sale than in any 

 ^W other stock. It is only occasionally 

 ^it that a young horse wiU bring enough 

 when sold to pay for raising him. "SVe do not 

 advise horse-breeding as a money-making 

 business, but only for use. It does pay a 

 farmer who has use for horses to keep at 

 least one span of mares of such breed as suits 

 him to raise colts from. The mares can do 

 just about as much work during the year as 

 they ordinarily would if they did not raise 

 colts. There are seasons when they would 

 be at rest, and a sensible farmer will so man- 

 ago that the colts will bo foaled at a time 

 when it will least interfere with the usefulness 

 of the mares for work. 



Occasionally, a man can make something 

 by raising fine trotting or running stock, but 

 seldom indeed; and on an average there is 

 more time and money spent fooling with such 

 "fine stock" than they are all worth put to- 

 gether, even at their fictitious values. 



That the most useful horse is the most val- 

 uable one from a common sense stand-point 

 of values, there is no disputing. The farmer 

 who tries to improve his working and road 

 stock is on the right track, whether he pleases 

 the jockeys or not. 



And right here we want to call attention to 

 the superiority of good walking horses over 

 those of slower gait. Everything else being 

 equal, fast walkers are worth twice as much 

 as slow walkers, for farm work especially, and 

 for any kind of teaming. 



Habdt Colts the Best. — Good care of colts 

 does not mean keeping them in the stable, 

 unless it be during storms. A colt can be 

 made tender and awkward if it does not have 

 have the full benefit of out-of-door exercise 

 and romping over fields and pastures. Good 

 feeding is a necessity to rapid growth and 

 and complete development, but ^rithout that 

 exposure and freedom that gives hardiness 

 and nimblenoss a colt cannot become a per- 

 fect horse. Don't make the colts tender and 

 dumpish by confinement when they are grow- 

 ing. Give them a chance in the full air and 

 sunlight, and inure them to some endurance 

 of fatigue and change of weather. But feed 

 them well and train them in the way they 

 should go. 



Perchekon and Noeman Hokses. — Within 

 the past few years quite a large number of 

 stallions of these breeds have been brought to 

 this country. The preference of most of our 

 bneders is given to them decidedly over the 

 Clydesdales, and they are used with grand 

 success upon mares of all breeds and sizes. 

 Even the little Inchan Pony mares ■nill bear a 

 great Percheron stallion's foals, which, as 

 yearlings, are as large, or larger, than them- 

 selves, and it is abundantly proved that size 

 is not an essential qualification in mares to 

 produce large colts by these horses, contrary 

 as this is to the views which prevailed a few 

 years ago, namely, that the best system of 

 breeding was to put big, roomy mares to well- 

 knit and compact staUions smaller than them- 

 selves. 



The demand in all our large cities now for 



heavy, quick-stepping draft horses, a pair of 

 which will step oif with five tons over a good 

 pavement, is so gi'eat that our farmers must 

 be awake to meet it. Such teams will bring 

 $800 to $l,'2O0. They ought not to be put to 

 hard labor before they are five or six years 

 old; but from the time they are three until 

 they are old will do all the farm work and not 

 feel it. 



As this style of horses increases in the 

 country, the desirability of keeping the mares 

 for breeding, mil lead to our using heavier 

 teams for farm work which will be greatly to 

 our advantage. — Ex. 



Endukance of Eastern Horses.— Australian 

 horses, unprepared, unshod, and uncared for, 

 are in the constant habit of performing forty, 

 fifty, or even sixty miles a day, when on a 

 journey over roads or through the wild native 

 bush, without even a track. Their food con- 

 sists of what they can pick up for themselves, 

 in many cases when tethered to prevent their 

 strayiug, and their grooming in having the 

 rough mud rubbed ofi' with a bunch of grass; 

 but they have at least one advantage over jjoor 

 Caradoc in being allowed to ease and rest their 

 limbs in whatever manner they choose during 

 the night. It is stated, on the authority of 

 Abdel-Kader, that Arab horses will travel for 

 three or four months at the rate of over fifty 

 miles a day without showing fatigue, and are 

 capable of doing 150 miles in a single day 

 during the journey, if treated with care and 

 quietly ridden the next. Some years ago, an 

 Arab, only fourteen hands, one inch high, was 

 ridden in India 400 miles in five days for a 

 bet; rnd its owner offered to repeat the feat 

 after one day's rest. Thisofi'er, however, was 

 not accepted, as the game little horse won the 

 match the first time with the greatest ease. — • 

 Land and Water. 



A Public sale of Percheron horses took place 

 at Ouarga, 111., Februarj' 10th. An average 

 of $2,055 each on the ten young stallions dis- 

 posed of was obtained. 



'iscicultuit. 



How Fish Spawn Can be Hatched. 



,, MONG the many interesting things at 

 SV« the exhibition of the Central New York 

 V Poultry Association lately was a new 

 ^ST contrivance for carrying and hatching 

 c) fish eggs, the invention of A. Green, 

 brother of Seth Green, the famous Father of 

 Fishes. It was a plain compact box, not over 

 fourteen inches square, which coiatained trays 

 aliout one inch in thickness, placed snugly 

 one over the other, and tilling the box com- 

 pletely fuU. The bottoms and tops of the 

 trays were composed of Canton flannel, and 

 the cost of the whole is but a trifle. The fish 

 eggs are placed upon the flannel, one layer in 

 each tray, and it is only necessary to keep the 

 flannel moist to secure the desired result. The 

 eggs can be hatched in fifty days or in one 

 hundred and fifty, just as the owner desires, 

 the length of time necessary being governed 

 entirely by the temperature of the place in 

 which the hatching box is kept. If the flan- 

 nel is kept slightly moist, the process of 

 hatching goes on, whether the box is located 

 ill kitchen, cellar, pantry, garret or parlor, 

 just the same as if the eggs were in a hatch- 

 ing house, creek or river. When the eggs 

 show signs of life, the trays can be put into a 

 pan, those that are wiggling upon their own 

 account can be brushed ott' into the water or 

 allowed to paddle away, and the remainder 

 can be replaced in the box and hung upon a 

 nail until evidences of other lives apjiear. 

 Sevia'al of the trays were in the pans at the 

 poultry exhibition, and the visitors were 

 greatly interested in seeing the young fish 

 break out of their egg? and s-nim ofi" with the 

 sacks which give them nourishment for thirty 

 days and longer. 



How Oysters Are Bsen. — Prof. Lockwood, 

 in Popular Science Montldy, says: Our bivalve, 

 however, does not spawn after the manner of 

 mollusks generally. It is in its own way vivi- 

 parous. It does not emit eggs; but, at the 

 proper time, sends forth its young alive. The 

 eggs are dislodged from the ovaries, and com- 

 mitted to the nursing care of the gill and 

 mantel. At first, each egg seems to be in- 

 closed in a capsule. It is of a yellowish color; 

 but, as incubation or development progresses, 

 the color changes, first to a gray, then to a 

 brown, afterward to a violet. This is a sign 

 that the time of eviction is at hand; for Na- 

 ture now issues her writ to that effect. And 

 wonderful little beings the}' are when the writ 

 arrives to vacate the homestead; for whole 

 troops of them can go gracefully, and without 

 jostling, through the maziest evolutions iu 

 that tiniest sphere— a drop of water. 



As cited by F. W. Fellowes, in the Ameruxin 

 Knluralisl, says M. Davaine: "Nothing is 

 more curious than to see, under the micro- 

 scope, these little mollusks travel in a drop of 

 water, in vast numbers, mutually avoiding 

 one another, crossing each other's track in 

 every direction, with a wonderful rapidity, 

 never touching, and never meeting." The 

 parent oyster has, indeed, a ijrodigious family 

 to turn out upon the world. But when this 

 time does come, though Winter be near, her 

 actions are summary, and the wee bairns are 

 every one ordered from home. They are spit 

 forth, or ejected from the shell. Filled with 

 water, the valves are suddenlj' snapped to- 

 gether. Every snap emits a small, whitish 

 cloud. Though a little of the milky fluid be 

 iu it, this whitish cloud is comjiosed chiefly 

 of the tiny fry; for, individually, they ar<! 

 almost invisible. Indeed, who shall count 

 the oyster's oft'spring? Science, by her own 

 methods, has made the computation, and so 

 she gives us the astounihng assurance that 

 a single oyster, during one spawning season, 

 emits two miUion embryos! 



Seth says he has been experimenting upon 

 this process since 18.55, but never hatched 

 spawn to his satisfaction. While he has been 

 busy in taking care of the general improve- 

 ments in the matter of fish culture with great 

 success and much benefit to the world at largo 

 his brother worked out the problem, and Seth 

 gives him all the credit due his invention, for 

 which a patent has been asked. The Greens 

 find that they can hatch 1,000,000 fish eggs by 

 the use of a single pail of water. Brook 

 trout, salmon trout, white fish and salmon all 

 grow finely in the box. They have caiTied 

 100,000 salmon trout from the New York State 

 hatching house to the Pennsylvania house on 

 two trips. In one trip seventeen were found 

 dead, while but two died on the other. Spawn 

 can be carried on a journey of 130 days with 

 good management, and no more loss than is 

 sustained in the hatching house. This ap- 

 pears to be the invention necessary for trans- 

 porting the spawn across the ocean to Europe. 

 With it there could be no failure Uke the one 

 which occurred recently upon the fiist trial 

 trip. — Vlica Herald. 



Trout and White Fkh. — B. B. Bedding, 

 of the Fish Commissioners, and J. G. Wood- 

 bury, their Superintendent, took to the Sum- 

 mit from Berkeley 15,000 young brook trout, 

 half of which were to be planted iu the North 

 F(uk of the American river, at Soda Spring, 

 and the remainder in Prosser creek, which 

 empties into the Truckee. These trout con- 

 stitute one-third of the number hatched at the 

 State hatching establishment at Berkeley 

 from 50,000 eggs from New Hampshire. The 

 rest have been placed iu streams in different 

 portions of the State. One hundred thous- 

 and white fish eggs arrived a few days ago 

 from the Government hatching establishment 

 at Niles, Michigan, but a large number had 

 hatched out while en route and died. The 

 young fish obtained from the eggs remaining 

 will be introduced into Tulare lake. A large 

 number of white fish were planted in Clear 

 lake two or three years ago. — Eecord-Union 



