250 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[July, 
prizes offered should be raised by means of a 
small admission fee, and to make these secure, 
they should be guaranteed by the members of 
the association or some of the wealthier of them. 
Once put in operation, experience will soon 
show what is wanting and suggest the remedy. 
If an exhibition is all that can be accomplished 
at first, a good commencement will have been 
made. Above all things, get plenty of exhibi¬ 
tors, and if the stock does not show better than 
the seven lean kine dreamed of by Pharaoh, 
well and good, there is something to start from. 
Each year will improve on the proceeding one, 
and having an ideal in view, every farmer in 
the county will endeavor to attain it. We re¬ 
member the first exhibition in a county in a 
Western State, at which there was no blooded 
stock of any kind, but such was the impetus 
given to improvement by the spirit of compe¬ 
tition engendered, that in five years from that 
time there wore exhibited three kinds of pure¬ 
bred horned stock, five of pure-bred sheep, and 
two of hogs; while the grades had already be¬ 
come respectable in numbers and appearance. 
Besides this, a mutual insurance company had 
been started among the members, and nearly 
every house and barn in that district was in¬ 
sured against fire. 
As interchange of ideas is a great help to im¬ 
provement, it would be well to enlist in these 
annual gatherings some well informed farmer 
from a distance who should deliver an address 
upon some interesting topic. This probably 
might be found more instructive than a horse¬ 
race. We wish this doubtful agricultural fea¬ 
ture, could be stricken out of the programme 
on these occasions. 
Bots in Horses. 
There are probably more mistakes made in 
the treatment of horses supposed to be suffering 
from Bots, than from any other complaint what¬ 
ever. While we admit the existence of Bots, we 
don’t believe in the many stories of their inju¬ 
rious effects on horses’ stomachs. We have 
owned at different times many horses, and have 
had them occasionally afflicted with what v r as 
called Bots, but have never lost a horse by death 
from this cause. The reason of this exemption 
from loss, has arisen, we firmly believe, from the 
fact that we have never permitted them to be 
dosed with the poisonous mixtures so much in 
favor with drivers and hostlers. The writer 
with ten horses in his stable at one time for a 
period of three years, had no case of sickness, 
not even an attack of Bots, from the moment 
he cleared the hostlers apartment of all the 
powders and villainous drugs he had there stored 
up in fearful array. Previously the horses had 
the Bots all the year round, and many were the 
remedies administered. Turpentine, milk and 
molasses, whiskey, and raw potatoes were com¬ 
mon medicines. Now if the Bots were actively 
engaged in boring holes through the coats of 
the beast’s stomach and laying bare the sensi¬ 
tive membranes, we fancy turpentine or whis¬ 
key would not be a soothing application there¬ 
to. A fatal inflammation would more likely be 
the result, and the remedy would prove as bad 
as the disease. In passing through the interior 
of the horse the Bot is undergoing its natural 
development; and when the proper time comes, 
it passes out with the excrement. To bore a 
passage through the carcass of the horse is not 
its natural mode of exit. We may alwa} r s safe¬ 
ly trust to the laws of nature, and the instincts 
of living things, to guide us in our operations. 
These all point to the fact that Bots are not 
necessarily injurious to the stomach of a living 
animal. We may then safely search elsewhere 
for the cause of those complaints generally at¬ 
tributed to the grubs of the Bot-fly. When 
we think of the carelessness with which horses 
are generally treated in the matters of over¬ 
driving, feeding, and watering, we cannot be 
astonished at the numerous forms of ailments 
of the stomach and intestines to which they are 
subject. In the majority of these cases the horse, 
if left to himself for a few hours, will be relieved 
naturally, but in a serious and prolonged indis¬ 
position, it would be wiser to seek the help of 
a practised veterinarian tliau that of the ordina¬ 
ry ignorant village horse or cow doctor, who 
will probably in nine cases out of ten, do more 
harm than good, for while he is endeavoring to 
kill the supposed Bots, he is more likely to suc¬ 
ceed in destroying the horse. Generally it may 
be taken for granted wLen a horse rolls in his 
stable, gets up and lies down again often, turns 
his nose to his flank, and repeatedly makes inef¬ 
fectual attempts to state, that he is suffering 
from indigestion or from inflammation of the 
stomach or bladder, resulting from errors in 
feeding or watering, after excessive labor—in 
such a case, nature will almost always find a 
means of relief in a few hours without any as¬ 
sistance other than rest, and care to prevent the 
horse from bruising himself. 
Sheep on a Poor Farm. 
Some farmers of our acquaintance feel an 
antipathy to sheep, for the reason that they 
“ bite close.” We consider this their chief rec¬ 
ommendation. They can only bite close 
where the pasture is short, and the pasture is 
short only on a poor farm. A poor farm will 
necessarily be encumbered with briers, weeds, 
and brush, in the fence corners. Under such 
conditions, we would say to a farmer who has 
twenty dollars or upwards in cash (or credit for 
it, and then let him borrow the amount if he 
has to pay one per cent a month for the use of 
it), invest it in as many ewes, not older than 
three years, as you can get for that money. Put 
them this summer in such a field as we have 
described, and give them, in addition to what 
they can pick up, a pint of wheat bran and oat¬ 
meal daily, with free access to water and salt. 
They will first “go for” the briers and clean 
them out; every portion of that field will be 
trodden over and over again, and the weeds 
will have no chance. Fold them on that field 
during winter, and carry to them feed sufficient 
to keep them thriving. Get the use of a good 
buck in season—South-Down would be prefer¬ 
able—and in the spring, if you have luck (that 
means if you give them proper attention and 
feed regularly), you will raise more lambs than 
you have ewes. The money will be more than 
doubled, and the wool and manure will pay for 
their feed and interest. In the spring you may 
put that, field in corn, with the certainty of 
getting fifty per cent increase of crop. 
-Op——-- 
The Color of Bulls. 
It is a little difficult to seriously and pa¬ 
tiently discuss the bearings of the question of 
color in our domestic animals—a question that 
is raised almost exclusively with reference to 
the Jerseys—for nothing is better known than 
that nothing at all is known about it. If Mr. A. 
tells us that he wishes his Jerseys all to have 
black tongues and black hair on the ends of 
their tails, and a uniform color of body and 
limb, because he thinks they are so much more 
“ stylish ’’-looking, we may smile at his taste, 
and even think that he attaches importance to 
a very unimportant characteristic; but we can 
find no serious fault with him for gratifying his 
own taste in his own way. If Mr.- B. tells us 
that he wants his cattle to be of all colors, and 
some to have broad patches of white for the 
sake of contrast, we may or may not think that 
he, too, is working for a trivial object. But if 
either of these gentlemen tell us seriously that 
the color of an animal, or of any of its mem¬ 
bers, has a known physiological significance, 
he must excuse us if we give him credit tor 
more enthusiasm than discretion. (We except, 
of course, those well-known indications of a 
tendency to the high coloring of butter, which 
is indicated by a corresponding deposition of 
color in the udder, in the horns, irnder the 
white hair, and in the ears.) We have been 
gravely told, more than once, that a bull with 
a black tongue is more likely to perpetuate his 
own characteristics than one with a light- 
colored tongue. After some investigation and 
much inquiry, we are confident that there is no 
ground for this theory, which, so far as we 
know, finds its adherents only among men of 
limited experience. What peculiar virtues at¬ 
tach to black tails, we do not know. That they 
are handsomer, we cannot think; but this, again, 
is a matter of taste, and is not to be discussed. 
A new idea is now being sprung upon the 
public. It comes, as its predecessors did, in the 
modest form of a suggestion; but one after 
another will probably take it up, and in a few 
years it is not unlikely that it may become a 
cardinal article of faith with the proselytes. 
It is no less than the following: That the fawn, 
or Monde color, represents a more delicate con¬ 
stitution, and that when animals of this color 
are bred together they deteriorate; and it is 
also suggested that, as in the human family, the 
introduction of dark blood tends to reinvigorate 
the race. Not to go far for our illustration, we 
refer to the cattle of the Island of Guernsey, 
whose characteristics are well known to Jersey 
breeders. They are the blondes of the blondes. 
Not only are their colors very light, but they 
even lack the dark eyelids, muzzles, and horn- 
tips so common (but not universal) with Jerseys; 
yet they are as hearty and vigorous and per¬ 
sistent a race as is known, and a single cross of 
their blood will be evident for many generations. 
The shorthorns arc blondes almost without 
exception, and no race is more vigorous. If we 
were to meet the question by reference to the 
human race, we would modestly suggest, being 
Anglo-Saxon ourselves, that these blue-eyed, 
flaxen-haired men of the North have held their 
own tolerably well in the world, and that their 
fair-haired cousins show a constitution for which 
the dark blood of France has no terrors. If 
the objection is raised that the triumphs of 
these races are due to intellectual rather than to 
physical causes, we have only to cite the Rus¬ 
sians, who are almost uniformly fair, who have 
superabundant animal health and vigor, and 
who show by their close personal resemblance 
to each other, observable especially among the 
common people, that they are a thorough-bred 
race of long standing, without the intermixture 
of dark blood. 
The muialtocs of our own country are not 
quite so clear a case in point, because in their 
case the infusion of dark blood is from the 
mother’s side; but their weakness of constitu- 
