THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



19 



4. Water is to be given twice a day, and, if 

 convenient, the animals may be walked to the 

 upring, creek, or pump. The exercise will amuse 

 them, promote their appetites, and aid of course 

 the object in view. 



5. After their hay is eaten, give from ten to 

 sixteen quarts of Indian corn and oats ground 

 together, to each head three times daily during 

 ten days; then half a peck of boiled mashed 

 potatoes, with a handful of corn meal sprinkled 

 over them. The water in which the potatoes 

 have been boiled must be thrown away, as 1 

 know it to be hurtful to animals. In a week, a 

 change may be made of chopped pumpkins, or 

 sliced Swedish turnips, or sugar beet, for the po- 

 tatoes. The new food will invariably encourage 

 appetite, unless in the event of an aversion to 

 some one article, for which no cause can be as- 

 signed. Indian corn meal, with or without oats, 

 must be the never-failing accompaniment of any 

 other food. 



6. Great care must be taken to w T atch the 

 appetite of the animal, so as never to cloy it ; 

 otherwise, time will be lost. He must on no 

 account be over fed— and to avoid this, during 

 the occurrence of an increase of temperature in 

 the air, (or "a warm spell") which takes place 

 almost every winter, the usual allowance must 

 be diminished. The farmer should take the 

 alarm the hour that he sees the animal leave 

 any of his usual allowance in the trough or 

 rack, clean out both, and by a dady walk, extra 

 carding, and, if necessary, a dose of Glauber 

 salts, try to restore the appetite. 



7. The food, other than hay, should be given 

 in a box and in the trough alternately, which 

 should be daily washed or dry-scrubbed, and 

 scraped, to prevent the remains of a former mess 

 from turning sour, which will infallibly disgust 

 the ox. This was the uniform practice of that 

 first rate farmer, Joseph Cooper, of New Jersey, 

 who urged its adoption upon the writer, as one 

 with the importance of which his own ample 

 experience had fully impressed him. 



8. Flaxseed jelly, with corn meal, is of ser- 

 vice occasionally to soften and loosen the skin, 

 and produce that "kindly feel" in it which the 

 great English improver Bake well, ranked as an 

 essential point in the choice and feeling of cat- 

 tle; meaning thereby a " mellow, soft, feel, yet 

 firm to the touch, and which is equally distant 

 from the hard, dry skin peculiar to some cattle, 

 as it is from the loose and flabby feel of others." 



9. Carding the animal thrice daity with ap- 

 propriate cards is an all-essential part of the 

 process. The operation is highly grateful to 

 the animal, and its effects eminently salutary. 

 It. promotes the action of the small vessels on 

 the surface, and the muscular fibres, which sym- 

 pathise and act indirectly upon the stomach. — 

 Medical men are well acquainted with the inti- 

 mate connexion subsisting between the state of 



the human corporeal surface, and the stcmach 

 and viscera connected with digestion, and the 

 same connexion is observed in the ox when 

 feeding. 



10. Regularity in the hours of feeding and 

 watering is essential. 



1 1. Cut straw, free from mould or smell, may 

 be given once a daj', by way of a change, 

 slightly sprinkled with com meal and salt. It 

 will be eaten freely. The stable should be well 

 ventilated, if possible — for the more pure the 

 air, the more keenly will the animals cat. The 

 utmost attention must also be paid to cleanli- 

 ness. The animals must not be permitted, when 

 leaving the stall to drink, to walk through a 

 yard covered with wet manure, and to return to 

 their stall with the clefts of their feet filled there- 

 with—for, owing to the acrimony of the liquid, 

 a sore therein will be the almost, certain effect, 

 with a consequent loss of appetite. This cleft 

 must be occasionally examined in both oxen 

 and sheep, and if found sore, should be washed 

 with soap and water, when the application tf a 

 dossil of tow, dipped in spirits of turpentine, 

 morning and evening, for three or four days, 

 will remove it. 



12. Clean bedding is a point obvious to all. 



SOAKING CORN TO FEED HORSES. 



One of the best farmers in the vicinity of 

 Baltimore, saves one-third of his corn, by soak- 

 ing it before he feeds it to his horses. He places 

 two hogsheads in his cellar, secure from the 

 frost, and fills them with ears of corn, and pours 

 on water to rover it. When well soaked, he feeds 

 it to his horses, and when one cask is empty, 

 he fills it again and feeds from the other. By 

 the time one is empty, the corn in the other is 

 well soaked. The cobs are so well soaked that 

 the horses eat the whole, and they require only 

 two-thiro's as much corn when prepared in this 

 way, and there is no doubt that this preparation 

 and the eating of the cob with the corn, renders 

 the food more wholesome. — Farmers' Journal, 



For the Southern Planter. 

 MUD. 



Messrs. Editors —In the last number of your 

 valuable Planter "A Subscriber" seems lo be in- 

 credulous as to the good effects of river or swamp 

 mud as a manure. I will offer my mite in its 

 support. Some l went}' years ago, I was anx- 

 ious to enrich a piece of poor land, and thought 

 I was without means to begin, but my attention 

 was drawn to a piece of swamp or mill-pond 

 land I had not long reclaimed, and I determined 

 to try the mud thrown out of the ditches. Hav- 

 ing an uncle, in whom I placed much confidence 

 as a farmer, as well as otherwise, I consulted 

 him upon the subject. He was of the opinion 



