240 



IRRIGATION 



branch. The midge also bin-rows into the seed bolls 

 and works great havoc, and a clover-blossom worm finds 

 its way into alfalfa and works some injury. Flooding 

 an affected field with water will usually do away with 

 the worms. 



Hoove or Bloat. The only objection which has 

 been raised against alfalfa as a forage plant is its ten- 

 dency to cause bloat in ruminating animals. In its com- 

 ponent parts there is nothing in alfalfa which would 

 necessarily create hoove, and the only way by which it 

 occurs is when the animal eats too greedily and over- 

 gorges itself by taking in 

 greater quantities than it can 

 digest, when gas accumu- 

 lates and tympany of the 

 first stomach is the inevi- 

 table result. It is held that 

 alfalfa grown- without irriga- 



FIG. G8. 



i;.sKD 



tion will not cause bloat. 

 Neither will esparcet, which 

 is a plant similar to alfalfa. 

 A number of preventives 

 have been introduced to al- 

 leviate the sufferings of an 

 animal with the hoove, but 

 e trocar is the surest alter- 

 native and is usually applied as a last resort. Figure 68 

 shows how the instrument may be used. 



The veterinarians have a rule for. inserting the tro- 

 car. They span with outstretched thumb and middle 

 finger for a point at right angles with the chine and hip 

 joint on the left side, plunging the trocar in a downward 

 and inward direction fully six inches, when it should 

 tup the stomach and allow the gas to escape. By plant- 

 ing the trocar at a point equidistant from the hip bone, 

 the last rib and the lateral process, many a valuable ani- 



