374 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Aug. 



Almost everybody considers white clover or 

 honeysuckle the best of feed in a pasture. I 

 do know from lon<^ experience that this kind 

 of feed will not fatten a creature and will not 

 make so much milk or so much butter, while 

 it is all growing beautifully, and when, as 

 some observers will say, 'your pasture looks as 

 white as a sheet,' as it will after some of the 

 heads become ripe. 



I used to think that my cows must be out 

 early to feed, while the dew was on. This 

 may be necessary where the feed in the pas- 

 ture is short, and all day is required for the 

 animals to fill themselves ; but experience has 

 taught me that when I can have as much 

 feed as I should like, and as much as there 

 should always be, that my cows do bet- 

 ter not to eat one mouthful of feed in the pas- 

 ture until after the dew is oiF, especially in 

 honeysuckle. Asa G. Sheldon. 



Wilmington, N. H., June 13, 18G8. 



For the K'ew England Farmer. 

 DO BOTS EVER KILL HORSES P 



We were not a little surprised to see a state- 

 ment in the weekly Farmer of June C, and in 

 the Monthly, page 330, from Mr. Stuart's 

 "American Fanner's Horse Book" that "there 

 is no evidence, that, in his normal condition, 

 the bot ever injures the horse's health in the 

 least degree." And again, "as to the popular 

 belief that the bot causes the death of the 

 horse by eating through the stomach," Mr. 

 Stuart says: "although the stomach i^ often 

 found to be completely riddled by the bots, 

 as the popular expression is, there is good 

 reason to believe the work is done entirely 

 after the horse is 'struck by death.' " 



Now, in 1850 we lost a valuable horse, un- 

 der these circumstances : Early in the fall the 

 horse was turned out to grass in good health, 

 as we supposed, though we noticed that she 

 did not feed quite as well as usual. In the 

 morning the horse was nearly dead. Her 

 suffering must have been intense. It hardly 

 seemed possible that an animal could be al- 

 tered so much in one night. She appeared to 

 be in the greatest agony ; holding up her head, 

 and laying it over on her side, as if conscious 

 of what was the trouljle, and appearing as 

 horses are said to appear when they have the 

 bots. 



We immediately sent for a horse farrier, 

 who lived near by, but the horse was dead 

 when he arrived. He opened the animal, and 

 inside of the stomach clusters of bots, from 

 the size of a four-pence-half-penny up to that 

 of a dollar, were found so closely together 

 that it was impossible to see any interstices 

 between them, and in perfect circles. Her 

 stomach was literally covered with those clus- 

 ters, and in every instance they had eaten 

 completely through the inside of the stomach, 

 but leaving the outside covering untouched. 

 In no case had they eaten through that. If 



they were endeavoring to escape on account 

 of the illness of the animal, or other cause, 

 why did they stop there ? The fact that they 

 had eaten their way to this tough skin as 

 evenly as though carved with a knife, showed 

 most conclusively to my mind that the inside 

 stomach was devoured to satisfy the appetite 

 of these parasites, which thus caused the death 

 of the horse. 



Will Mr. Stuart say that the horse was 

 "struck by death, and the animals were trying 

 to escape ?" Then why did not some of them 

 do so ? Why thus uniformly eat their way to 

 the outside covering of the stomach, and no 

 further ? Simply because it was not so good 

 as the other part. 



Again, says our author, "the cuticular cov- 

 ering of the stomach to which the bof fastens 

 himself by means of two little bearded hooks, 

 is nearly if not wholly insensible, having no 

 more feeling, apparently, than the horse's 

 hoofs. When the animal is in health, it is 

 hard, rigid, impenetrable, and the bot, if ever 

 so much disposed to do so, would attack it in 

 vain ; bnt when death seizes him, this coating 

 becomes relaxed and soft, and begins rapidly 

 to decompose. Then only it is that the bot 

 can or does ever work his way through it," 

 &c. How does Mr. Stuart or any other man 

 know that the inside or cuticular covering of 

 the stomach of a living and well horse is im- 

 pervious to the bot ? Has he or any body 

 else ever been there to ascertain these facts .•* 



We have heard the assertion made before, 

 that the horse is never known to die from the 

 effects of bots. We protest against such 

 wholesale, theoretical assertions, unsustained 

 by facts. From their boldness and novelty 

 they arrest attention, and thus go far to estab- 

 lish a popular belief and error. 



The statement that the bot is hereditary 

 with the horse may be true or may not. It may 

 also be true that what we call the bot is only 

 the offtpring of the gad fly ; but that it cannot 

 penetrate the inner or cuticular coating of the 

 horse's stomach until "after the animal is 

 struck by death," we deny ; for what our eyes 

 have seen, and our hands have handled, that 

 we are bound to believe. 



There are one or two facts more in connec- 

 tion with this case that perhaps it may be well 

 to give. The horse had been used during the 

 day, and her stomach was empty. Probably 

 the bots, by seizing simultaneously on her 

 stomach, put her in very great distress, which 

 must have caused a great disturbance in her 

 l)Owels. Her manure, which was to be seen 

 in probably not less than twenty places where 

 the animal had been up and down through the 

 night, was in the first place natural, but 

 changed by regular gradations as it was 

 voided, down to the consistency of mere wa- 

 ter. And from a robust, sound, and well- 

 looking animal, she was changed to a mere 

 skeleton. If it had been possible to have 

 taken out all her bowels, 1 do not think she 



