1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



155 



In this subduing process, the first end to be at- 

 tained by the subduer is a thorough understand- 

 ing between himself and the horse. The animal 

 must be convinced by a certain course of humane 

 treatment — he never can be by ill usage — that 

 man is his master, and by quiet submission no 

 harm or suffering will come to him ; make this im- 

 pression upon him, and he yields himself complete- 

 ly to your power. To accomplish this, Mr. Rarey, 

 with a skilful manoeuvre, manages to take away 

 the use of one leg by attaching a strap to the fet- 

 lock, -which is then drawn up through the girth 

 or belly-band, and fastened short enough to re- 

 move the foot from the floor. After the lapse of 

 a few moments the other fore leg is treated in the 

 same manner, and the horse is thrown upon his 

 knee-joints. In this condition he is powerless, 

 yet does not give up. But seeing that his exer- 

 tions to rise or to injure the tamer are futile, in 

 a few moments he rolls over upon his side thor- 

 oughly conquered. The principal object is ac- 

 complished, and now that he is in his power, the 

 tamer caresses him, strokes his mane, lies by his 

 side with his arm encircling his neck, and thus 

 convinces the animal that he would not harm him 

 on any account. He perceives no ill disposition 

 in the master, and he will manifest none himself. 

 A feeling of sympathy has been established be- 

 tween man and beast. This constitutes the whole 

 secret of Mr, Rarey's wonderful power over horses. 

 A single lesson will not suffice, as is generally 

 supposed, but four or five days are required to 

 accomplish the complete subjugation of an ani- 

 mal. Besides proving so clearly this general 

 principle, which should be followed by horse man- 

 agers, Mr. Rarey has presented some most valu- 

 able suggestions as to the best method of lifting 

 a horse's foot from the ground, mounting the sad- 

 dle, and stopping the animal when attempting to 

 run away. 



I have often, said he, been angry with farriers 

 for the bungling and careless way in which they 

 took hold of a hoof, when about to shoe it. There 

 is a right and wrong way. Don't grab at it, as 

 if it was a roasted apple in a furnace, but begin 

 thus — pat the horse's neck, pat his shoulder, lean 

 yourself familiarly against the upper part of his 

 leg, run your hand gently and soothingly down 

 to his foot, and then easily, steadily (not steady 

 by jerks) take it up — all motive for resistance be- 

 ing absent, the foot will lie peacefully in the hand, 

 the nerves are relaxed, and you can throw it up, 

 and up, and there will be no trouble. 



In mounting a horse, many people go to work 

 with the wrong end first, as indeed they do about 

 everything. It's as simple as possible. You 

 don't want to have all of your weight come on 

 one side of the horse ; if you do, the saddle is 

 drawn on one side, and it is not easy for the horse 

 to sustain it, but you should now place your hand 

 on his neck, bearing thereon so that the hand 

 shall balance the foot, then spring lightly in. You 

 can do this as well when the saddle is ungirded 

 as when tightly fastened. In the head the horse 

 has immense power. 



No man can ever hope to hold in a running 

 horse by pulling evenly upon the bit ; he might 

 as well try to lift himself over the fence by pull- 

 ing at his boot-straps ; it can't be done. When 

 a horse's head is turned to one side he is com- 

 pelled to so arrange his legs that they will prop- 



erly balance him — he cannot run forward — there- 

 fore my advice would be, if a horse is riwining 

 away, or if he refuses to go, to pull tightly as I 

 now do upon the right rein, and force the horse 

 to describe a circle for an indefinite period of time, 

 after which, you may depend upon it, he will not 

 attempt the same trick. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 THE PLUM WEEVIIj. 



Mr. Editor : — I read with great pleasure the 

 various contributions on the subject of Insects in 

 your valued paper, but regret the ignorance which 

 seems to prevail with regard to the natural laws 

 which govern them, and control their habits and 

 transformations. My attention was called par- 

 ticularly to a communication in the paper of Feb. 

 9, from your correspondent, Mr. White, of So. 

 Hadley, which I will proceed to discuss, if he will 

 excuse the liberty, for the sake of the motive. For 

 the destruction of insects on the plum tree, he re- 

 commends vials of sv/eetened water hung from 

 the limbs ; stating that he has found in them 

 hundreds of insects that he had never before 

 seen. I feel no hesitation in saying that in the 

 whole number of species in those vials he never 

 found more than one, if any, specimen of the 

 plum weevil, or curculio, the only insect which 

 may be considered the enemy of the plum, and 

 which has caused the abandonment of that branch 

 of fruit-growing throughout the country. Many 

 species of moths, flics, wasps, and occasionally a 

 beetle or two, most of which are injurious to veg- 

 etation, though not to the plum ti-ees, are the re- 

 sult of these vials ; therefore they can be hung on 

 any tree with equal, and even greater propriety 

 than on the plum. They are of considerable ser- 

 vice on the apple tree in capturing the parent of 

 the core-worm, and on the cherry they Avill kill 

 many moths whose larvte are injurious to leaves. 

 No certain remedy has yet been discovered for 

 the devastations of the curculio, except constant 

 watchfulness and labor in jarring the trees dur- 

 ing the season of their attacks, which extends 

 from the time the j'oung fruit reaches the size of 

 a small pea, to the fourth or fifth week after. 



Mr. W.'s receipt for killing rose-bugs is excel- 

 lent, and is equally useful for the small green lice 

 which overrun the tender shoots of various shrubs 

 and plants. In the last of the paragraph, howev- 

 er, he says : "These fellows, as soon as they have 

 shed their yellow wings, attack horses, being the 

 small horse-fly which is so troublesome through 

 the summer." Some slight similarity in color or 

 size between the rose-bug and some of our sum- 

 mer flies, must have led him into this strange er- 

 ror, for the rose-bug, as it is called, is a beetle, 

 which, being gifted with hard and horny jaws for 

 eating leaves, and double wings, the upper pair 

 of which are also hard and shell-like, while the 

 lower are folded beneath them, never changes in 

 form, habits or appetite, after it emerges from the 

 earth. The various species of horse-flies, on the 

 contrary, have a long sharp sucker, or trunk, 

 through which they suck the blood of animals ; 

 without jaws or biting apparatus of any kind. 

 They have only two wings, which are never fold- 

 ed, but always ready for flight, and their bodies 

 are of much softer consistency than the beetles 



Andovcr, March, 1861. F. G. Sanborn. 



