330 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



July 



by their being fed exclusively on skim milk. 

 He recommended giving them thorough-rvort 

 tea. I did so at once, by means of a spoon, 

 administering it three or four times in the 

 course of the afternoon. They took it as 

 readily as a young child would its usual food. 

 In a few hours they all began to improve, and 

 the next day were considered fully recovered, 

 and thenceforth went on eating and drinking, 

 and thriving, as all good piggies ouf^ht to. 

 Being afterward supplied with a variety of 

 food, they never again showed symptoms of 

 any disease. 



Probably if these pigs, on being taken from 

 the mother, had for a time been fed with milk 

 warm from the cow, instead of that which had 

 been deprived of its cream, there would have 

 been no sickness among them. I happen to 

 know, from familiar experience, that a free 

 use of skim milk as a beverage, has a ten- 

 dency to produce costiveness in the genus 

 Homo, — and am disposed to infer that it will 

 have a similar effect in the genus Sus. 



Butter- MAKING in Winter — Some years 

 ago, while making butter from the milk of 

 eight cows, though in summer the butter would 

 come In from fifteen to thirty minutes, It was 

 found that, as winter approached, the time re- 

 quired for churning gradually increased, till, 

 about the middle of November, the cream re- 

 fused to part with its butter even after five or 

 six hours' churning, though kept at the tem- 

 perature of about 60° Fahrenheit. After that 

 time we could get the butter only by scalding 

 the milk before it was put in the pans. We 

 then came to the conclusion that butter could 

 not be made in winter without scalding the 

 milk. But a little further experience has 

 shown us that we came to this decision too 

 hastily. We have, through the past winter, 

 made good butter from a young cow (got by 

 an Ayrshire bull, out of a half-Jersev cow.) 

 with but little more trouble than it formerly 

 cost in summer. This shows us, what prob- 

 ably older butter makers knew before, that 

 there is as much difference in cows "as there 

 is in other folks." We knew before that the 

 cream of some cows would yield its butter in 

 summer much quicker than that of others, but 

 we had not gone so far as to learn, that, while 

 from some the butter will not in winter come 

 at all without the process of scalding, that of 

 others will come readily if kept at the right 

 temperature. 



I suppose the old farmers are wise enough 

 already, and can take care of themselves. 

 But let me suggest to those young ones who 

 may be about to buy cows for a butter dairy, 

 that they will do well to select with great care, 

 and test them individually with reference to 

 this point of difference in time required to 

 produce butter from their milk. If one* cow 

 in the herd gives milk whose cream is slow to 

 yield butter, it would be better to put her to 

 a different use at once. 



Woodpeckers. — It is pleasant to feel that 



we belong to a superior race ; and I do not 

 intend to discontinue boasting a little, occa- 

 sionally, of the wonderful capacities and varied 

 powers of man. But I think we may often 

 find, in observing the habits of the inferior 

 animals, as we are fond of calling them, that 

 they often display a keenness of observation, 

 a tact, a certainty of coming to what they aim 

 at, that it would be difficult for most of the 

 superior order to equal In the same line. For 

 an example in a small way : I cut down a black 

 oak, forty or fifty feet high. In trimming it 

 up near the top, it was found that a wood- 

 pecker had recently tapped it, making a hole 

 to the centre. On a careful examination, it 

 could be seen where the bark had previously 

 been punctured by some insect for the pur- 

 pose of depositing Its egg. On splitting open 

 the wood, which was about three inches in di- 

 ameter, the cour.se of the grub could be traced 

 from the surface to the centre, and then down- 

 ward, following the pith, for five or six inches. 

 Precisely at the lower end of this passage, the 

 woodpecker had struck, pierced to the depth 

 of an inch and a half through the solid green 

 wood, and taken out the grub. Now I doubt 

 whether even one of our best trained musi- 

 cians, whose ears will detect a variation of a 

 quarter of a tone in music, could have suc- 

 ceeded £0 well in this case. If he could, by 

 rapping a few times on a green tree, not only 

 make sure that a grub had bored a passage 

 along the heart of the wood, (remember, this 

 passage is filled again by the chips as the grub 

 works along.) but decide correctly on the pre- 

 cise spot occupied by the grub, — well, if he 

 could do that, it is my candid opinion that he 

 would be entitled to the credit of having a 

 very good ear. m. p. 



Concord, Mass., May, 1868. 



BOTS AND ^VORMS IN HORSES. 



In his new work, "The American Farmers' 

 Horse Book," Dr. Stewart claims that the bot 

 is hereditary with the horse, and is liorn into 

 the world with him ; the colt, at the moment of 

 foaling, having a little parasite in liis stomach, 

 in as perfect a state as the horse of six years. 

 The author goes on to state that the bot is 

 found attached to the cutlcular or insensible 

 coating in the upper portion of the stomach 

 — not by his head as is populai ly supposed, 

 but hanging by his tail. For a mouth he has 

 a little orifice, no larger than the point of a 

 cambric needle, with which he feeds upon the 

 food in the stomach, after it has i^een softened 

 down into chyme. This tiny mouth he can 

 close against any substance which offends his 

 dainty taste ; and being protected b^' a scaly 

 or bony covering, upon which no acul, caustic 

 or poison, will operate, he is much safer from 

 the action of any hurtful element than the 

 horse into whose stomach he is introduced. 

 There is no evidence, says Mr. Stewart, that, 

 in his normal condition, the bot ever injures 



