California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal. 



this culture, with the most encouraging 

 I results. During the last ten years the 

 i^ increase has been more than ten-fokl. 

 The crop for 1875-7C, just harvested, is 

 reported to be the most abundant ever 

 produced. The area under cultivation 

 was 39,000 acres, or about sixty per cent, 

 more than last year, and the yield is es- 

 timated, by competent judges, at 17.5,000 

 barrels. The yield would doubtless have 

 been still larger, but for the fact that a 

 large portion of the land under cultiva- 

 tion was for the first time planted with 

 rice and under the management of inex- 

 perienced planters. The seed used has 

 been mostly of South Carolina growth, 

 and to this is largely attributed the im- 

 proved quality of the present crop. 



Statement of the Louisiana rice crop 

 for the past twelve years, showing the 

 steady and almost uninterrupted increase 

 from "9,866 barrels in 1864-05 to 175.000 

 barrels in 1874-75, furnished by Messrs. 

 Dan Talmage's sons: 



TEABB. BAERELa. 



1864-65 9.86(; 



1865-66 11,94.-! 



1866-07 20.464 



1867-68 21,663 



1868-69 41,317 



1869-70 67,956 



1870-71 01,256 



1871-72 29,87:i 



1872-73 52,200 



1873-74 97,120 



1874-75 115,(1011 



187.5-76 175,000 



The total yield of American i-ice may 

 be safely estimated at 73,000 tiercas and 

 175,000 barrels. It is a much more 

 profitable crop than either sugar or 

 cotton. 



Smoking IN the Bakn. — "No smok- 

 ing " ought to be posted in every barn. 

 There is not much diftVreuce between 

 having a horse-thief around the stables 

 and a man cleaning oft' horsfs with a 

 pijie or cigar in bis mouth; and there is 

 no hired man much meaner than the one 

 who, when his employer comes around, 

 slips his pipe into his jiocket or holds 

 his hand over it. All such fellows should 

 be paid off and started off. As for the 

 proprietor himself going into the barn 

 with a pipe in his mouth, no complaint 

 can be made; but if his establishment 

 burn up, nobody should cry unless it be 

 his wife and children. Lightning, in- 

 cendiaries and spontaneous combustion 

 combined do not cause so many barns to 

 be burned as the pipe, and generally at 

 least one good horse goes, too. — Spirit of 

 the TiiiK^s. 



Dr. Lee, a distinguished a.gricultural 

 writer and chemist, said, in an address 

 before the New York Agricultural Society : 

 " I regard it as one of the greatest dis- 

 coveries of this age, that about ninety- 

 seven per cent, of the ingredients which 

 make up the whole substance of wheat, 

 rye, barley, oats, peas and beans, exist 

 in the air in inexhaustible quantities. 

 To transmit these aeriform bodies into 

 the plants above named and into grass 

 and roots at the smallest expense is the 

 object of nearly all your hard work." 

 This was spoken thirty years ago, and 

 the doctor says that the views then ex- 

 pressed will not now be called in ques- 

 tion. 



An English farmer accidentally 

 dropped a grain of wheat among some 

 seeds he was sowing in his garden, and 

 having a curiosity to protect it, gave it 

 every chance to come to perfection. The 

 result was sixty-four heads — forty very 

 large — containing 3,044 counted kernels, 

 not including some picked away by an 

 enterprising hen. He leaves readers to 

 draw their own conclusions, only adding 

 that, as the result of frequent investiga- 

 tion, he never found more than twenty- 

 live cars to one root growing in his fields. 



®Iic ^§m$t. 



Humanity to Horses. 



[The following vertes are issued on leaflets for 

 distribution to drivers and others bs,ving the 

 caro of horses, and ou cards for hanging up in 

 stables, by the Society for Prevention of Cruelty 

 to Animals:] 



Going up hill, whip me not; 



Coming down hill, hurry me not: 



On level ground spare me not; 



Loose in stable forget me nut. 



Of liay and corn rob me net; 



Of clean water stint me not; 



"With sponge and water neglect me not; 



And of soft, dry bed deprive me not. 



Tired or hot, wash me not; 



Sick or old, chill me not; 



With bit or reins jerk me not; 



And when you are angry, strike me not. 



FEEDING AND WORKING 

 HORSES. 



OESES that work need an abund- 

 ance of good feed, should be fed 

 at stated times, and be systemati- 

 cally cared for. The jockey who is 

 training a horse for the race-course 

 knows how essential regularity in feeding 

 is, and is alwaj'S very particular about 

 the quality of the feed given his training 

 horses. We have seen them pick over 

 the hay by the handful, taking out every 

 defective straw or objectionable weed 

 with the greatest of care; also sifting out 

 the oats and washing clean before giriug 

 them to the horses, and alwaj's feeding, 

 watering and exercising by the time- 

 piece — this for months, so as to prejjare 

 the system to expect feed, and rest, and 

 exercise, at a certain time, and to be pre- 

 pared and ready for it. Every hard work- 

 ing man who has been regular at his 

 meals for a time knows how his stomach 

 tells him exactly when the hour and 

 minute of meal-time arrives, and how 

 bad he feels if the food his stomach 

 craves is not ready, whatever the cause 

 of irregularity may be. It becomes an 

 essential part of his good nature and 

 comfort to get his meals ou time. He 

 can work with a better will if regular in 

 his hours of labor, and endure moi'e 

 without fatigue. His muscles and his 

 stomach are stronger. And while a va- 

 riety of f(K)d is essential, there are cer- 

 tain things that sei'iu equally so at every 

 breakfast, dinner or supper. As it is 

 with a man who labors so it is with the 

 horse in these particulars, only more so, 

 for the horse has no mental diversions or 

 cares to call his mind from his stomach. 

 And when his day's labor is ended it is 

 cruel to ask him to do more if it can be 

 avoided. When we take into considera- 

 tion the nature and wants of the animals 

 under our charge, and intelligently care 

 for and treat tkem, we can obtain better 

 work, and keep them in better condition 

 with ease to the aninud and satisfaction 

 to the master. 



The teamster and farmer are not ex- 

 pected to be as particular as the jockey 

 is about food and exercise, nor is it nec- 

 essary; but they should work and feed 

 by some rule that can be conveniently 

 conformed to, Thiit rule should be es- 

 tablished with reference to the needs of 

 the horse as well as to the nature of the 

 work to be done. We have known many 

 teamsters and some farmers to keep their 

 horses at work all day without anything 

 to eat from morning till night. This is 

 poor policy as well as needless cruelty. 

 A horse can do one-fourth more work if 

 allowed an hour m- two to feed at noon. 

 We know this by actual experience at 

 the heaviest kind of teaming and farm 

 work. 



One word about hay and grain, for 



horses. We can never advise hay chop- 

 pers. They make the hay no easier of 

 mastication or digestion, and when 

 chopped the horse has to eat every de- 

 scription of weed and refuse that it con- 

 tains. We prefer to let the horse pick 

 over the hay himself and reject whatever 

 he doesn't like, feeding no more at a 

 time, of course, than will be eaten ^vith- 

 out unnecessary waste. As to the grain, 

 it is economy to have it ground, as it 

 saves a working horse a great deal of la- 

 bor in mastication. Soaked grain is not 

 so good. It is apt to cet sour and act 

 injuriously, or be swallowed down with- 

 out chewing, doing no good and causing 

 dyspepsia. We have found that a mix- 

 ture of ground barley, oats and wheat 

 bran, fed dry, is the best for a work 

 horse. He can eat it no faster than the 

 natural moisture of the salivial glands 

 prepares it for the stomach, and it will 

 all be thoroughly digested and assimi- 

 lated by the blood for use in supplying 

 vital strength to the system. A horse 

 will soon learn to eat no more of it than 

 he needs, if given in any quantity, and 

 he will keep healthy and strong, be 

 hearty and full of cheerful life and vigor, 

 and stand up to a good deal of very hard 

 work, under kind and systematic treat- 

 ment. 



About the Mule. 



The mule seems to be again coming 

 into favor in England. At a recent 

 show in that country, the prize 

 mule was seventeen hands high and 

 proved to be much stronger than a com- 

 l^eting horse of equal size. Another 

 mule exhibited was only twelve and a half 

 hands high, which the previous week had 

 been driven 220 miles in forty-two hours 

 entering in London the evening of the 

 second day at a gait of ten miles an hom' 

 •and with no signs of fatigue. These 

 evidences of toughness and endurance 

 seemed to have somewhat astonished 

 John Bull, and he is now discussing the 

 question as to whether the mule will 

 prove as a work animal of greater value 

 than the horse. The farmers of the West 

 and .South (in the United States) could 

 easily give him a solution of this ques- 

 tion. Let him visit the Blue Grass re- 

 gions of Kentucky, Callaway, Saline. 

 Lafayette and other counties in Missouri, 

 any portions of the rich cotton growing 

 districts of the South, and he will there 

 find constant evidence that for good, 

 steady work, healthfuluess and economj' 

 in keeping, there is no animal to be found 

 which is the equal to the mule. We be- 

 lieve, further, that for constant work 

 either in harness or saddle, "day in day 

 out, ' ' the mule Is decidely the superior 

 of the horse. The best riding animal we 

 ever owned for both speed and endur- 

 ance, was a mare mule. She was fully 

 sixteen hands high, was as graceful as a 

 deer in making an action; just wild 

 enough to use constant watchfulness, 

 and if properly confined, in one night's 

 time woidd jiaw herself out of almost 

 any stable. But what a luxury it was to 

 ride her! head always up, spirits never 

 flagging, going as freely at the outcome 

 as at the start, it seemed to make no <lif- 

 fcrcnce to her whether her journey was 

 of an hour or amonlh! We knew her gaits 

 as well as wo know the frauiture in our 

 sanctum, and knowing either the distance 

 or time, could tell the other by the six- 

 mile running walk of hers, as well as by 

 the chronometer or mile-post. For long 

 distances, the best traveler we ever rode 

 behind was a mule. Wo have both in 

 this State and Kentucky, seen mule 

 spans which, hitched to a biiggy, for 

 style and speed are hard to excel. Give 

 them good groondng and proper hand- 



ling, and they wiU certainly show it, and 

 just as much as a horse. The time has 

 been when mules were the fashionable 

 animals of Europe. Who does not re- 

 member the ambling mules ridden by the 

 luxurious churchmen who presided over 

 the monastries and abbeys of England in 

 the days of Friar Tuck and Kichard 

 Coeur de Leon? In the reigns of the 

 Bourbons the mule was an equal favorite 

 in France, and was alone considered ap- 

 jjropriate to draw the gorgeous carriage of 

 his majesty in its annual journey to 

 Fontaiubleau. In Spain, even yet he is 

 pjetted and caressed and constantly re- 

 ceives the attention he deserves, and the 

 proud hidalgo, the jewelled senorita, and 

 even royalty itself, delight in doing him 

 honor and riding him with rich and cost- 

 ly housings. The day may come, for 

 aught we know, when the mule shall be 

 as jjopular as the thoroughbred horse 

 now is, and when an equal amount of 

 care and attention will be given to his 

 breeding. — Journal and Farmer. 



• HoKSE Racing at Fairs. — A con-es- 

 pondent of the Indiana Farmer does not 

 accept the opinion so often expressed by 

 horseman that if it was not for racing the 

 Agricultural Societies would fail to take 

 money enough at the gates to pay their 

 running expenses. There are manj-who 

 really believe that it would be imjiossible 

 to conduct the fair successfully without 

 the fast ring. They further believe that 

 the encouragement of fast speed in a horse 

 is legitimate work of agiicultural societies. 

 Neither of these propositions are true. 

 The fact that the largest number of peo- 

 ple are present on the day that the prin- 

 cipal racing comes off is cited as evi- 

 denee that the racing drew them. And 

 to one who has given but little tliought 

 to this subject, or has not been behind 

 the curtains and seen how these things 

 are managed, this is a plausible conclu- 

 sion; but to one who knows how these 

 things are managed, the argument is not 

 as conclusive. While the friends of the 

 fast ring would have the people believe 

 that the fast horses brought the crowd ou 

 the day of the racing, they argue dift'er- 

 ently when it comes to making out the 

 programme. The reasoning then is that 

 the racing must come oil' on tho day 

 when it is almost certain the greatest 

 number of people will be in attendance 

 so that they can have an opportunity of 

 witnessing it. The argument stands in 

 about this shape: The racing is arranged 

 for a ijarticular day, because that will be 

 the most popular day, and the people are 

 there on that day because the racing is to 

 come oft" on that day. One of the most 

 successftil fairs of the Indiana State 

 Board of Agricultural was when no pre- 

 mium was ott'ered on speed alone. Not 

 long since the Ohio State fair was a 

 grand success without any premium ex- 

 clusively on speed. 1'he New York State 

 fair held last fall realized $10,000 re- 

 ceipts — $10,000 more than at any pre- 

 vious fair, yet no premium was given ou 

 mere speed. \'arious county societies 

 have held their fairs without the pres- 

 ence of the fast ring, and, others things 

 being equal, their success has been as 

 great as when their fairs were largely 

 giovn up to racing and gambling. 



DuitiNo the last three months 1,44G 

 horses, 67 donkeys and 5 mules, were 

 killed in Paris for jniblic consumption. 



The cattle melon, as our English cous- 

 ins c.ill the pumpkin, is grown to per- 

 fection in France. This year one was 

 exhibited there weighing 400 pounds. 



If they want to pull 'em biick, all the 

 men in the world can't stop 'cm. 



