1868. 



NEW ENGLAND FARJ^IER. 



331 



the horse's health in the least degree. The 

 hot is pronounced to be an entirely different 

 insect from the grub or worm, with which he 

 has no relationship whatever. The latter is 

 the offspring of the gad fly, and is undoubted- 

 ly an intruder. It is a species of light yellow 

 worm, which passes away from the horse in 

 the excrements during the months of July and 

 August, and becomes imbedded in the earth 

 where the chrysalis is formed, whence in time 

 is hatched the fly. The eggs of the fly are 

 deposited upon the horse's skin, are bitten off 

 and find their way into the horse's stomach. 

 Here the worm is developed in time, and thus 

 the species continues to be propagated. Un- 

 like the bot, the grub never attaches itself to 

 the coating of the stomach, but lives among 

 the particles of food, the tough fibrous por- 

 tions of Avhich it decomposes and in both stom- 

 ach and bowels undoubtedly performs the same 

 office for the horse that worms do in the child. 

 When multiplied in great numbers the grub 

 may occasion much uneasiness and irritation, 

 but never causes death or even serious disease. 



As to the popular belief that the bot causes 

 the death of the horse by eating through the 

 stomach, Mr. Stewart says : — Although the 

 stomach is often found "completely riddled by 

 the bot," as the popular expression is, there 

 is good reason to believe that the work is 

 done entirely after the horse is struck by 

 death." One or two facts will go far to 

 prove the truth of a proposition which to 

 many will appear so extraordinary. 



The cuticular coating of the stomach to 

 which the bot fastens himself by means of two 

 little bearded hooks, is nearly if not wholly 

 insensible, having no more feeling apparently 

 than the animal's hoof's. W^hen the horse is 

 in health it is hard, rigid, impenetrable, and 

 the bot, if ever so much disposed to do so, 

 would attack it in vain ; but when death seizes 

 him this coating becomes relaxed and soft and 

 begins rapidly to decompose. Th(^n only it is 

 that the bot can or ever does work his way 

 through it. Another fact still more strongly 

 corroborative of the above proposition, Is this : 

 that of any number of horses kilkd while in 

 perfect health, and opened an hour or two 

 afterward, there will be found not one whose 

 stomach is not "i-Iddled by the bot." DLs- 

 sectlon has revealed the existence of this con- 

 dition in hundreds of instances of sudden 

 death from accident. 



Dr. John Franklin, of Sumner county, 

 Tennessee, relates the case of a horse In- 

 stantly killed by the falling of a large timber, 

 whose carcass he onened within a few hours 

 after death, with the especial object of testing 

 the theory that the bot forces a passage 

 through the walls of the stomach in all cases 

 when the disease is not of such a nature as to 

 stupefy him. As he expected the insects in 

 considerable numbers had already cut their 

 way out. The bot does not attack the stom- 

 ach for the purpose of preying upon it or of 



injuring the animal, but simply to seek escape ■* 

 from certain death himself. The same disease 

 that is killing the horse threatens his destruc- 

 tion also. An instinct similar to that which 

 prompts vermin of nearly all kinds to leave a 

 dead or dying carcass, teaches him that his 

 old habitation is no longer a safe one and 

 hence his desperate endeavors to get away. 

 He has been found working up to the esopha- 

 gus, passing through the small intestines and 

 even cutting through between the ribs almost 

 to the skin itself. If possible he would es- 

 cape from the horse entirely." 



These views are so different from those 

 usually held by horsemen that we give them 

 for the benefit of those interested in the care 

 and management of horses. If they be true, 

 the practice of drugging the horse with medi- 

 cines for the purpose of stupefying or arrest- 

 ing the supposed action of bots is useless and 

 Injurious. — Utica Herald. 



FLCWEKING- TREES. 



In trees with rosaceous flowers, nature ex- 

 hibits some of the fairest ornaments of north- 

 ern climes ; and these are the only trees that 

 produce a pulpy fruit. Such are all the trees 

 of our orchards — the cherry, the peach, the 

 apple and the pear ; als j the mountain ash and 

 its allied species, down to themcspilus and the 

 hawthorn. These trees are suggestive rather 

 of the farm and Its pleasant appurtenances 

 than of rude nature ; but so closely allied to 

 nature is the farm, when under the direction 

 of its unsophisticated owner, and unbedizened 

 by taste, that its accompaniments seem to be 

 a rightful part of Nature's domain. The sim- 

 plicity of the rustic farm coincides wlih the 

 fresh glowing charms ©f nature ; and a row of 

 apple trees, overshadowing the wayside, forms 

 an arbor in which the rural deities might revel 

 as in their own sylvan solitudes ; and Nature 

 herself wears a more charming appearance 

 when to her own rude costume she adds a 

 wreath twined by the fingers of Pomona. 



The blossoms of the rosaceous trees are 

 Invariably white, or crimson, or the different 

 shades of these two colors combined. Those 

 of the cherry and the plum are constantly 

 white ; those of the peach and the almond, 

 crimson ; those of the pear and the mountain 

 ash are also white ; and those of the apple, 

 when half expanded, are crimson, changing to 

 white or blush color as they expand. The 

 colors of the hawthorns vary with their spe- 

 cies, which are numerous. As I have already 

 Intimated, Nature is not lavish of those forms 

 and hues which are the ingredients of pure 

 visual or objective beauty. She displays them 

 very sparingly under ordinary circumstances, 

 that we may not be wearied by their stimulat- 

 ing influence, and thereby lose our suscepti- 

 bility to the impressions of homely objects. 

 But at certain times, and during very short 

 periods, she seems to exert all her powers to 



