Sec. C] feeding CATTLE AND CARE OF FARM-STOCK. 73 



may be placed in any out-door situation, -wliere cattle can go and lick it 

 whenever their appetite inclines them to do so, and it will not waste by 

 exposure to dew or rain, because it is not hygrometric, as is the manufactured 

 salt in common use. Another thing in its favor is this — your stock, with 

 salt always before tliem, will never eat too much. Neither will they cat it 

 too fast, as tlicy almost always do when salted with line salt ; nor waste it 

 by scattering it in the dirt, or leaving it to dissolve and sink into the earth. 

 Another difKcuIty is obviated by the use of rock-salt constantly within reach 

 of stock, and that is, the hooking and punching of the weaker animals by 

 the strong ones, in fighting their way to the once-a-week, or perhaps once- 

 a-month, salting-place. 



llock-salt is a mineral as much as marble, and almost as solid and hard, 

 and is quarried out of mines, like coal or other mineral substances. The 

 most extensive salt mines are at Cracow, in Poland, where there are regular 

 cartways, streets, and villages of miners' huts, where men, M'omen, and 

 children, and domestic animals live deep down in the earth. Our principal 

 supply of rock-salt comes from Cheshire, England, where there are extensive 

 mines. In its mineral state, the salt is of a slightly reddish color, and dingy 

 ■white, and some of it needs to be melted and purified for culinary purposes. 

 Tlie purest portion may be reduced at once to powder by breaking and 

 grinding, and is then quite white. The salt known here as Liverpool salt is 

 refined rock-salt from the Cheshire mines. 



A lump of rock-salt as big as a man's head may be fixed by pins upon a 

 rock or block, where the water will not stand around it, and it will remain 

 until all licked away by the cattle's tongues. In case of stock in stables, a 

 lump may be placed in each manger. 



98. Bonos for Animals. — A good deal has been lately said about feeding 

 animals with bone-meal. We give several opinions upon the subject: 



E. C. "Wright, of Gallatin County, 111., states, on the authority of the Rev. 

 John Crawford, of Crawford, in that county, that the bones of swine dying 

 with what is called liog cholera, decay as rapidly as the flesh, and that portions 

 of the skin outlast the bones. lie wants scientific men to give attention to 

 this strange consumption of the solids, and thinks that it may be the means 

 of suggesting a remedy for the disease so fatal and so pecuniarily distressing 

 to a vast number of farmers in the West. Now, as we know that feeding 

 bone-meal to animals and phosi)hate of limo to plants tiiat need it, has 

 proved beneficial, is it impossible or improbable that feeding it to swine 

 suflering from a disease tluit produces the efi'ect described, may not be the 

 means of curing or preventing the disease? 



Dr. Waterl)ury says: "There arc some now theories in relation to feeding 

 phosphates to animals. It is possible tliat this may have some cfi'eet. There 

 is an idea prevailing that feeding material that makes bones will increase 

 their size. It is a subject well worthy of more attention." 



I'rof. Mape-s states that, when a calf is deficient in bone, that is, too weak 

 to stand, feeding bone-meal to the cow that suckles the calf will furnish it 



