228 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



May 



Shanghai hens, (of Forbes's importation.) Two of 

 the eggs are not above the usual size of hen's 

 eggs, but are very heavy, weighing, one 2^ the 

 other 2J ounces. The third is of a very large size, 

 weighing 4 ounces, and measuring 8| inches one 

 way, and 5 13-16 inches the other. Mr. Aborn 

 will please accept our thanks for the above. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 THE VALUE OF SULPHATE OF ZINC 

 (WHITE VITRIOL) TO THE FARMER. 



Having formerly been a practitioner of medicine, 

 my knowledge of the properties of the above ar- 

 ticle has led me to some knowledge of its value as 

 a topical application in the farm yard. 



At one of our Annual Agricultural Exhibitions 

 a year or two since, I met with a farmer, who, 1 

 remembered, had the previous year exhibited a cow 

 whose fine bag had attracted my attention, and 

 which it seems always gave an abundant yield of 

 milk after calving, which was regularly and seri- 

 ously diminished by the difficulty of milking occa- 

 sioned by her teats becoming sore not many weeks 

 after the calf was taken away. He informed me 

 that he had made the application to her teats 

 which I had recommended the year before, and 

 that it had speedily and entirely cured the teats 

 and that they had remained perfectly well ever 

 since. I had entirely forgotten having recom- 

 mended anything, and he could not remember 

 the name of my prescription ; but upon my repeat- 

 ing one or two articles which I thought most like- 

 ly to have been suggested by me to him, he con- 

 fidently caught at the name as I repeated it of the 

 article above mentioned as the one which he had 

 so succesfully used. It was not many mouths af- 

 ter that, my hired man complained of a similar 

 difficulty in a valuable cow owned by myself, caus- 

 ing her frequently to raise her foot while being 

 milked, and preventing thorough milking of the 

 afifected teat. Recalling to mind the instance 

 above mentioned, I promised the man a remedy 

 for trial ; but other cares led me to postpone its 

 preparation until I found after two or three weeks 

 that the sore or excoriation on the teat was of the 

 size of a finger nail. I then dissolved perhaps a 

 teaspoonful of sulphate of zinc in a half pint of 

 water, aiad directed my man to apply it after each 

 milking, by means of a soft rag saturated with the 

 solution. It was four or five days, I think, (but 

 possibly a week,) thereafter, before I thought to 

 inquire as to its effiscts, when i confess I was as 

 much surprised, as ray man seemed pleased, to 

 find a perfect cure efiected and natural and healthy 

 appearing skin in place of the excoriation or sore 

 skin. This occurred some time last summer, I 

 should think about July or August, and when I 

 left home the last of January, she had been milked 

 regularly since that time without the slightest re- 

 turn of soreness. 



The hand of the man who milks is usually suf- 

 fered to be applied dry to the teat, and is often 

 hardened by hard work, and it is not surprising 

 that the friction occasioned thereby (and by a very 

 different surface from the moist mouth of thecal! 

 — the milker designed by dame nature) should oc- 

 casion inflammation in the skin, and a consequent 

 cessation of the slight oily secretion natural to the 

 pores of the skin of the teat. The sulphate of 



zinc is a decided astringent, and free from the ob- 

 jectionable properties of some mineral astringents. 

 Again ; I had a litter of Suffolk and JNIackay 

 pigs littered last autumn, at that season when a 

 hot sun following cold nights is liable to produce 

 irritation and cracking of their tender skins, and 

 a consequent thick black scabs on the back, while 

 their tails become an entire scab and drop off. — 

 Five of this litter were thus affected. They looked 

 as if they had been lying or rolling in black mud, 

 but tlie pen was perfectly dry ; it increased from 

 day to day, and the state of the tail also satisfied 

 me that they were affected by some disease of the 

 skin, I knew not what. I therefore resorted to a 

 book upon the breeding and diseases of this ani- 

 mal, and found the affection well described and 

 accounted for, but the treatment very unsatisfac- 

 tory to me. I determined therefore to try the 

 zinc, as I thought it reasonable and probable that 

 in this instance also it would prove useful. Up- 

 on removing the little things from the pen, we 

 found their backs occupied by scabs of great 

 thickness, and so nearly touching each other as to 

 present the appearance of an uniform black patch; 

 but the skin was discoverable in the cracks be- 

 tween each scab or row of scabs, and the scabs we 

 found surrounding and involving the hairs. I had 

 prepared the zinc by mixing perhaps a heaping 

 tea-spoonful with a lump of hog's lard of the size 

 of a goose egg, incorporating it thoroughly with a 

 case knife. This was thoroughly rubbed upon the 

 parts affected, and the pigs returned after each ap- 

 plication to their pen. It was repeated every oth- 

 er day, until it had been applied three times ; af- 

 ter which, the thick scabs disappeared from four 

 of the five, leaving the skin in a natural state, 

 with the exception of a very slight blush of red 

 where the scabs had been. But this shortly dis- 

 appeared. The fifth was one which we had 

 brought up by hand, and was not cured until the 

 application had been made five or six times. The 

 tails were hopelessly lost, except one or two where 

 the root of the tail alone was affected. The oth- 

 ers, when we commenced with the zinc, had the 

 whole tail involved and cracked and looking as 

 though roasted (not brown) but to blackness. — 

 The speed with which the cure was effected, con- 

 sidering that the scabs were at least an eighth of 

 an inch thick, and that the pigs were continued 

 in the same exposure where the disease originat- 

 ed, leads me to feel confident that the cure could 

 not be solely attributable to the lard, which I 

 have no doubt would be so far servicable that with 

 longer time it might or probably would, remove 

 the difficulty. I sold the little fellows at five 

 weeks old, for $5 a pair. 



But to ascend from cows and pigs to a higher 

 order of beings for whose sake it may be worth 

 while to possess and to use this preparation of 

 zinc. Suppose a mother to have given her young 

 child an orange to amuse it or to eat, and not be- 

 ing watched, the little fellow has eaten the peel 

 as well as the pulp. Or, suppose that it has eat- 

 en some other equally indigestible article, and that 

 its stomach and delicate nervous system rebels 

 against the unwelcome intruder. The child is 

 found before long, as sometimes happens, in a fit 

 or convulsion. It is laid upon the bed and seems 

 to return to consciousness, but another and an- 

 other fit succeed. The doctor is sent for, but half 

 of our farmers live one or two ^miles distant from 



