9 8 



HORTICULTURE BY IRRIGATION. 



The times when alfalfa may be pastured with comparative safety are, 

 when the growth is fully matured and ready to go to seed (when it has 

 taken on a brownish tinge), and again when frost has checked the growth 

 and cured the juices. Experience has shown that these periods are the 

 ones when there is little hazard in turning in cattle. 



Horses are rarely injured, and swine never, by pasturing. Give the 

 porkers free run on alfalfa, and a little corn to "harden" the flesh before 

 they are placed on the block, and the work is complete. 



The usual remedies for bloat in cattle are, in mild cases, either to 

 elevate the head and fore-quarters of the animal, by standing it on a 

 stack, manure pile, or the like, when the gasses will often escape; or to 



keep the mouth open with a stick or a cob; or give a tablespoonful of 

 hyposulphite of soda; or, in severe cases, use a trochar. The latter is 

 rather a harsh remedy, and should be intelligently performed. Animals 

 are often injured by the unskillful use of the trochar. The rule is to 



may possibly result and some harm be avoided : " Many farmers now stack their 

 wheat and barley straw in their alfalfa pastures, and find it of great advantage in 

 fattening their stock, increasing the milk and butter production of their dairy cows, 

 and in every way being an advantage to their health and growing qualities. It is 

 noticed, too, that both horses and cattle will leave alfalfa for days at a time to feed 

 on straw stacks thus placed in the pasture." 



