1861 .] 
or<) 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
From all tlie evidence received, it does not ap¬ 
pear that tills seed contains any injurious ingre¬ 
dient, hut that it may have been fed too freely 
to horse® exercised sparingly, and the “ stiffs ” 
has resulted. This view is confirmed by a com¬ 
munication of W. G. Clark to the Prairie Fann¬ 
er. He says: 
“ One would think, from what is written, that 
before Hungarian Grass came, horses rarely died 
or were seldom sick; but since my residence in 
the West, twenty years, all the diseases now 
chargeable to this grass, have prevailed to a 
greater or less degree. I do not say that this 
grass is without its influence, but it is unjust at 
this time to charge it with all. An instance at 
hand: A neighbor of mine had three horses, all 
that he had, down with the stiffs, unable to per¬ 
form duty; a friend of his calling at his house, 
was informed of the fact, and they went and 
examined the horses. His friend said that this 
Hungarian grsss was the cause of it. The 
neighbor thought not; our friend was sure, and 
said it was killing all the horses in the country. 
Our neighbor thought otherwise, and informed 
his friend that his horses had not eaten a bite of 
the grass this Winter, nor ever had, as he had 
never raised a stalk on his place. This settled 
the question at once. 
“ The fault is in the excessive use of the grass. 
The horse is generally fed to repletion after 
standing in stables, and on hard floors, days and 
even weeks, without any exercise, and some¬ 
times without sufficient water, and then per¬ 
haps taken out and put to severe service, by 
hands totally ignorant of his powers, abilities, 
and wants, and often dies, and a mysterious 
gloom hangs over the whole affair. I have 
wintered 16 to 18 head of horses and colts for 
the last three Winters, and in six years I have 
not lost a single head from any disease, and on¬ 
ly two colts, one getting choked with a rope, 
and the other hooked by an ox. My best mare, 
two years ago, had the colic from eating soiled 
corn, fed to excess by boys, but with help got 
over it. I give all kinds of feed in proper quan¬ 
tities, and at proper times, and deem Hungarian 
grass among the best.” 
Dentistry for Dobbin. 
Has our friend a favorite horse, whose only 
fault is his age ? And have the old pony’s teeth 
got out of working trim, so that he masticates 
his food imperfectly, and, as a consequence, is 
becoming somewhat gaunt, rough haired, and 
seedy? You begin to feel a little ashamed of 
him, as you drive the family carriage along the 
main street of the town. You think you will 
soon have to sell him for a younger and less 
sensible beast, yet you dread to think of it, so 
attached have you become to him. 
Can’t you help him, and his looks ? Examine 
his teeth. The under jaw is growing crooked: 
the front teeth strike together before the grind¬ 
ers hit, and the incisors incline to project out of 
the jaw. Now, of course, this state of the teeth 
hinders complete chewing and mastication of 
his fodder; hence his digestion suffers, and nu¬ 
trition fails. The upshot of the whole is that 
Dobbin looks “ shabby.” 
The horse-doctors are sometimes a very use¬ 
ful class of men. A horse in the condition just 
stated, is one of their favorite subjects. Mr. 
Pierce, a Veterinary Surgeon, in Ohio, recom¬ 
mends the following treatment: 
The remedy is simply to shorten the incisors 
by filing them off. Great care is necessary to 
perform the operation successfully, as there is 
great danger of loosening and damaging the 
teeth ever after. If too short, it injures their 
cutting the grass; if not in the right shape on 
the surface, it prevents cutting near the ground. 
The operation should be performed by one 
skilled in the practice, by putting the horse 
loosely in the stocks, and placing a leather 
covered roller in his mouth, with straps attached 
to each end, and buckled over his head. This 
gag should be removed once in five minutes, to 
prevent cramping of the jaws. The file should 
be double fine, cut short and broad, with a thim¬ 
ble of leather over the end, to prevent wound¬ 
ing the gums. [There is a fine copper rasp made 
expressly for this purpose.— Ed.] The opera¬ 
tor should have a vessel of water at hand to 
clean the file in when necessary, then hold the 
lip in the left hand and perform with the file in 
the right. After the operation is finished and 
the teeth well cleaned, wash out his mouth with 
salt and water, and give him a dose or two of 
alterative and tonic medicines, and in a short 
time your poor old horse will begin to thrive 
like a colt. 
Stock Branding in Texas. 
The great number of sheep, cattle, and 
horses, fed upon the wild pastures of the West 
and South-west, where the neighboring herds 
are liable to be mingled, renders the marking of 
each animal important. In some places ear 
marks are resorted to; in others branding or 
marking the sides; and in others both methods 
are combined. The double marking is prefer¬ 
able: 1st, from the difficulty of varying the 
ear marks sufficiently, and of distinguishing the 
animals readily, as well as the liability of the 
ear marks to be destroyed by accident or de¬ 
sign ; 2nd, the branding, though more conspic¬ 
uous, is liable to be obliterated by the use of 
poor materials, by washing out, and by a coat¬ 
ing of filth. We have before us a copy of the 
Rio Grande Sentinel of May 22, published half 
in English and half in Spanish, at Brownsville, 
Texas, which contains the announcements of 
the ear-marks and brands of 107 different stock 
feeders. Here are a few specimens: 
F ALCON, JOSE... .Horse and cat¬ 
tle brand. Ear mark: split and 
upper bit in the right, and under halt- 
moon in the left. Stock at rancho tie 
Las Pajaros, range of the Infernillo, in 
Nueces county. 9 
G uerra domingo . — Horse 
and cattle brand: Ear mark: 
two bits from the right—no mark in 
the left. Rancho of the Indio Muer- 
to, Nueces county. mayl5-ly. 
G UERRA , TOMAS. — Horse and 
cattle brand. Ear mark: swal¬ 
low fork and two bits from the right, 
left ear entire. Ranch of the Indio 
Muerto. Nueces county. Myloy 
<p< ARZA, MARTA. — Horse and 
cattle brand. Ranch at Las Vis- 
nagas, Cameron county. 
Dec5-ly 
G AL VAN, SIMON.—Horse and 
cattle brand. Stock at Rancho 
de los Indios, below Brownsville, 
Cameron county. 
Dec5-ly 
G ARCIA, JOSE D.—Horse and 
cattle brand. Ear mark: ovep- 
slope and two under bits in the right 
and crop and under bits in the left. 
Stock at the Rancho Alazan, in Nue¬ 
ces county, and at Santa Rosalia in 
Cameron county. nov28-ly 
ARZA, MARIANO TRENINO. . 
Horse and cattle brand. Ear 
mark: crop and split in the right and j 
underslope in the left. Stock at La LJ 
Bareta and at the Tanque, Cameron 
county. Residence, Brownsville. dec2o-ly 
All of the 107 brands are so entirely different 
as not to resemble each other more than the 
seven given above; and the four columns of 
them together on a page of the paper present 
as comical an appearance as a page of Chinese 
hieroglyphics. One card is inserted and the 
paper furnished for a year for $5. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
Cheese Making. 
The old Method—Article from Dairy Farrnc. — Pre¬ 
paring Rennet—Saving all the Fatty Matter , etc. 
The way that our grandmothers made cheese 
was as follows: After the curd had come, they 
cut it as we do, and when it had “settled” very 
gently dipped off the whey—it was a spoiled 
cheese, they said, where the white whey was 
started. The curd was then dipped into a 
strainer in the cheese basket, and left for a while 
to drip, after which it was cut up in egg sized 
pieces, salted, and put to press. A short and 
summary process, certainly, compared with that 
of our modern vats, with their scalding and 
stirring method. Now if the writer in the 
Dairy Farmer, whose communication ap¬ 
peared in the Agriculturist , page 206, July No., 
had looked in the cheese whey of their daily, he 
would have found as little cream as in his own. 
His coming off minus in this respect, was prob¬ 
ably owing to two facts, first: that he skimmed 
his night’s milk; and second, that he threw the 
“ two or three last pails of his whey in the com¬ 
post heap.” It is from the latter that the most 
cream comes. 
Some of the reasons why inexperienced 
cheese-makers make “one-third less than a 
good hand,” are as follows: not enough rennet 
is put in, and the whey is milky; or the curd is 
broken up rudely, and perhaps when too cool, 
this also starts the white whey; or the milk is 
allowed to “turn” before the rennet is put in, 
and then the cream will ooze out after the 
cheese is put to press. In fact, anything that 
makes the whey milky, causes a deficit in the 
weight of the cheese. 
For a large dairy, three or four rennets should 
be put to soak at once, and plenty of salt added. 
We cut them up in pieces, and let them stand in 
a couple of gallons of water for a week, then 
rub them through half a dozen more waters, 
about a quart at a time, which takes all the good 
out of the rennet, and it is of no further use. 
A day or two after, we skim the liquid, which is 
kept in a stone jar, and then having added still 
more salt, bottle it up in stone jugs for use. 
The reason of preparing so much at a time is, 
that rennets differ very much in strength, one is 
never any rule for another. Enough rennet 
must be put in to have the curd come in thirty 
to forty minutes, and having once ascertained 
how much it will take, the same amount will do 
all the way through. Every time we prepare a 
fresh jar of rennet, we mark the time the first 
morning, and perhaps have to the second, and 
third. It would certainly be a great desidera¬ 
tum to save all the fatty portion of the milk 
in the cheese, but I have yet to know the 
first cheese-maker who, putting in all the cream, 
and scalding the curd as we do, could accom¬ 
plish it. A friend of the writer’s said she 
could save nothing from her whey tub, and 
wondered how we got so much. “ Do you skim 
your vat and save the cream?” I asked. “Yes.” 
“ Do you scald to a high temperature ?” “ No.” 
“Then that’s grandma’s plan, and you have the 
same results,” I replied. 
In scalding a large curd in. Roe’s patent vat, 
two person’s are always needed toward the lat¬ 
ter part, one to keep the curd stirring while the 
other removes the fire, and draws off the hot 
water. If the task devolves upon one person, 
