FARMERS' REGISTER— SCHOOLS FOR FARMERS' SONS. 



293 



cure was correlevant to the assigned cause. 

 "Touchino; tlie heart and the liver, it" a devil or an 

 evil apirit trouble any, we must make a smoke 

 thereof before the man or the woman, and the 

 party shall be no more vexed, and the devil shall 

 smeil it and Hee away, and never come again any 

 more." And Ihe story goes on to say, that in 

 Tobit's case, the evil spirit fled, when he had 

 smelt it, into the utmost parts of Egypt; but I do 

 not suppose that this kind of fumigation Avould an- 

 swer now-a-days. Rut, reveiwns a nos movtnns, 

 or rather let us proceed to the horses, with which, 

 indeed, the case is not much better. If you send 

 lor aiarrier, the message not unfi-equently is, that 

 he cannot come to see the horse to night, but that 

 he has sent him a drink, and Avill come and see 

 him in the morning. Now, try this system by the 

 same test: how would you like it yourself? You 

 arc suddenly attacked with a violent complaint, and 

 you send for Sir H. Haltbrd. He never saw you 

 perhaps in his life, and knoAvs nothing whatever 

 about what is the matter with you; but he sends 

 his comjiliments, and desires you to take a dose of 

 Daffy's Elixir; and if your complaint be Avhat is 

 very con)mon Avitli horses, viz. inffammation of 

 some of the viscera, this dose will probably finish 

 you, as out of all doubt it has finished many an 

 unfortunate quadruped. Not that the absence of 

 the farrier signifies much; he probably does not 

 know a bit the less of the disease on that account. 

 The study of horse-medicine and surgeiy has no 

 doubt made much greater progress than that of 

 cows or sheep, and some of its professors are men 

 of sense and education, as I am personally able to^ 

 testify; but how lew are they compared to those of 

 an opj)osite character. It was said, with much 

 point and truth, by an old physician, that in all 

 cases of illness there were three things to consider, 

 — the patient, the disease, and the doctor; and that 

 if any two of them pulled well together, they 

 would be able to beat the third. In the case I 

 have been supposing, it is the disease and the doc- 

 tor against the patient. 



Cows, again, stufi" themselves with cabbage, or 

 other succulent food, which by and by ferments 

 and gives out a great deal of carbonic acid gas; 

 the stomach becomes distended, and, if reliei" be 

 not speedily afforded, the animal dies. Many a 

 valuable creature has perished in this way, whose 

 life might have been saved if the owner had been 

 chemist enough to know what would stop the fer- 

 mentation, or had been provided with mechanical 

 instruments for drawing off the gas. And these 

 attacks are sudden, — remedies to be useful must 

 be near. There is no time to fetch the doctor, 

 even supposing him to be worth fetching. The 

 owner himself must know what to do, and how to 

 do it. It is not proposed to make every farmer an 

 accomplished surgeon; that would be impossible, 

 but it is not impossible, and it Avould not be useless, 

 to teach him at school something of the structure 

 and diseases of the animals on whose health his 

 fortune depends; something of the symptoms by 

 which those diseases are indicated, and something 

 of the operation of the most important medicines. 

 Being so constantly slaughtered for domestic pur- 

 poses, there would never be wanting opportunities 

 of studying tlaeir organization. The national , 

 gain, by diffusion of this sort of knowledge, would 

 be immense. According to Mr. Cokjuhoun's esti- 



mate, there Avere in the United Kingdom, so long 

 ago as 1812, 



1,800,000 Horses. 



10,000,000 Horned Cattle. 



42,000,000 Sheep and Lambs. 

 There are no tables published of sickness 

 and mortality amongst quadrupeds; but out of 

 53,000,000, the deaths occasioned by disease in 

 the course of a year must amount to an enormous 

 total. In Holland, above 500,000 cattle are known 

 to have died of disease within 20 years. At £ 10 

 a piece, this Avould come to £250.000 a year. 

 The tenth part of one year's loss uj)on this article 

 of cows alone, would be enough to put into opera- 

 tion throughout the whole kingdom schools, 

 which Avould create ten times as much wealth an- 

 nually as was ever lost by the death of cows. If 

 money laid out in diffusing knowledge produced a 

 return of only one hundred-fold, it would be cer- 

 tainly an eligible uiA'estment; but a hundred-fold 

 would be little, compared Avith its eventual pro- 

 ducts. 



Mechanics — the art of producing a given result 

 with the sinallest expense of power .—It is \'ery im- 

 portant to make pov/er go as far as possible, be- 

 cause it is the dead Aveight upon a farm. Horses) 

 eat and drink, but produce neither milk nor avooL 

 Perhaps the best Avay to show the value of thia 

 kind of knoAvledge, is to point out the losses at- 

 tendant on its absence. EA^ery body must have 

 seen ploughs so ill constructed as to require three 

 horses to druAV them through a soil Avhich might 

 have been worked Avell enough AAath tA\'o in a 

 plough of the improved pattern. Instead of a 

 sharp edge contrived to cut the ground, and a well 

 formed mould-board to turn it over, you may 

 sometimes see a blunt Avedge dragged sloAvly 

 through the soil, to the intolerable fiitigue of the 

 cattle, as aa'cU as the rapid destruction of the 

 plough and the harness; but little AA'ork is done, 

 and that little in an expensive and slovenly man- 

 ner.* Carts and wagons, too, are susceptible of 

 o-reat improvement; their more common faults are 

 fheir weight — the friction at the axle, the dishing 

 of the wheels, and the Avant of springs: the con- 

 sequence is, that a horse is jaded and knocked up 

 by Avhat Avould, under more skilful management, 

 have been an easy day's journey. An acquaint- 

 ance Avith mechanics Avould also induce a man to 

 pay more attention to the state of the roads. But 

 besides carts and ploughs, Ave are every day in- 

 troducing fresh machinery. We thrash, dress, 

 plant, and soav by its aid, and though of no very 

 intricate construction, these machines are some- 

 Avhat more so than the old farmin;^ implements. 

 The farmer is not to expect his laborers to study 



* By the way, it appears to me that an improvement 

 mifflit be made upon the best ploughs now in use. 

 The cutting: of tlie soil appears to be scientifically 

 done; but the clod, when cut, presses with force 

 a<'-ainst the shoulders of the mould-board, and offers 

 considerable resistance to its advance. Evidently the 

 force which turns it over should, if possible, be made 

 to act at right angles with the track of the plough, 

 whereas at present it approaches to the same line. 

 Might not an endless chain, or a horizontal wheel of 

 small diameter, be inserted just at the point where the 

 clod presses upon the mould-board, so as to ease the 

 friction? If the pulverization of the clod be the ob- 

 ject, that would be more economically effected by 

 roUing and harrowing afterwards. 



