AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
308 
With these facts before them, and the testi¬ 
mony of Admiral Moresby, to the extraordinary 
large exportations of the present year, now on 
their way to this country, the purchasers of 
guano should be on their guard against panic 
in reference to the supply; it will be at once 
turned to account as a convenient pretext for 
raising the price and continuing the monopoly. 
But let us not cease to urge upon the attention 
of our government the injurious nature of that 
monopoly, both to ourselves and the Peruvians, 
whether the supply be practically inexhaustible 
or not. Let it be made plain that we ask no 
sacrifice of price on the part of the Peruvian 
Government, but the benefit of increased sup¬ 
plies, and of competition in bringing the guano 
to this country, the cost of which forms about 
50 per cent, of the whole price of the article. 
Let us point to the example of the American 
President, who, with a boundless territory of 
unexhausted soil, announces in his last message 
to his countrymen, while we are talking about 
it, that he has taken measures to secure a more 
ample supply on more equitable terms. That 
which is but as a condiment to America has be¬ 
come like a necessary of life to us, with our 
narrow boundaries and worn-out cornfields, 
with no tracts of rich unbroken soil for our in¬ 
creasing population to fall back upon, and with 
a necessity, therefore, to supply our enlarging 
wants both by foreign importations and im¬ 
proved productiveness at home. It is a question 
sufficiently serious to demand the attention of 
Parliament and the public; and the exertions 
of our government need not be limited to nego¬ 
tiations with Peru, but be employed, wherever 
this country is represented, in a diligent inquiry 
after every source of nitrate or phosphate, the 
existence of which has only to be pointed out 
to attract the enterprise of the British mer¬ 
chant. James Caird. 
CURE EOR GLANDERS. 
I have lately discovered a remedy to cure the 
glanders in a horse : I thought it might be use¬ 
ful to others, and accordingly I send you the in¬ 
formation. Some time in May last a man drove 
up and fastened his horses by mine, and came 
into the store; afterwards we both went out, 
and I saw that one of his horses was sick. He 
said his horse had the glanders, and that he 
thought it would have died last night it was so 
sick. I was offended because he had tied his 
horse so near mine with a contagious disease, 
and said no more to him. Some days after this, 
the matter being somewhat forgotten, I was 
passing near my horse; he appeared to be sick; 
I turned and went up to him, and, sure enough, 
he was sick! His throat was swollen to a ter¬ 
rible degree, so that he could hardly raise or 
lower his head more than an inch or two. Some¬ 
thing must be done, for I could not part with 
him any way at present. I tried one thing and 
another, but all to no purpose. Now for a study. 
What will do the thing? Glanders; what are 
the glanders ? Why, it is diseased glands; the 
little vessels that bring the saliva to the mouth 
and the throat are diseased—stopped up, and 
must be opened. What will do it? Tobacco 
will vomit, and may open them. I took a half 
a pound of fine cut tobacco and poured two 
quarts of warm water on it, and let it soak a few 
minutes, and washed his throat and so on up to 
his ears, and down his throat to his legs and 
between his fore legs. It made him direful sick, 
and would have vomited him if it had been pos¬ 
sible for a horse to vomit. In three hours I 
bathed him again, and the next morning again. 
The final effect was, my horse could put his 
head to the ground after the second time bath¬ 
ing, and after the third time he could feed as 
well as ever, and is well, and has done better 
eyer since. Wu. McSiiepaiip. 
North Sheffield, Ashtabula Co., Ohio. 
Cut Feed. —The question is often asked, 
whether much is gained by cutting up hay, 
straw, &c., to feed neat stock. Something de¬ 
pends on circumstances. If vour hay is of the 
best qualit}'-, your cattle will eat the whole 
without cutting it, and save 3 'ou the labor.— 
But if your fodder is mostly poor, or if it has 
been injured in making, j r ou will do well to 
cut it short, and mix something with it to make 
it more palateable. 
We have had coarse fodder cut fine, and 
sprinkled with water, and by adding a little 
meal, and mixing the whole together, our cattle 
have been wintered at less expense than on 
merchantable hay. Cows in milk live on it, 
and it seems to be the way of disposing of a 
quantity of hay that is not good. Straw, also, 
may be disposed of in this mode. We make it 
a saving, as we do by hashing meat that is not 
fat enough for eating without the addition of 
butter, or something that will improve the 
meat. 
Husks and corn-tops, when well saved, have 
much virtue in them; and most of it goes into 
the manure heap, unless particular attention is 
paid to foddering. Cattle find it difficult to bite 
off the stems, though they place one foot on a 
part of them, while they pull with the teeth 
and gums. Some farmers cut them up fine for 
their cattle, and say they would do it even 
though the stems should be worth nothing for 
fodder, because of the trouble they make in 
overhauling the manure. When all the coarse 
fodder is cut short , there will enter a heap, no 
long manure ; the shovel will enter a heap, and 
when spread, a harrow will bury it sufficiently. 
— Ploughman. 
- Ml - 
Hay Meal. —A writer in the Germantown 
Telegraph says: 
I have no doubt that a meal made of hay, or 
even of cornstalks, would possess sufficient ad¬ 
ditional value over and above the raw material 
to defray the expense, and I have no question 
that before many years hay ground, or hay 
meal, if it be not too absurd to use such a term, 
will be as common as Indian meal or rye meal 
now is. I have some facts to communicate 
hereafter in reference to this matter, which I 
think will be interesting to your readers. We 
are in the “ midst of a revolution” in farming 
affairs, and are beginning to look around us 
with our eyes open to the light I trust. 
STALLIONS. 
From the Report of the Committee on Stallions, in the forth¬ 
coming Vol. of N. H. Agricultural Society. 
It is difficult to decide at what period of its 
history to commence our account of the Stallion- 
colt. If we begin at his birth, we are reminded 
of various matters antecedent to that—to him 
important—epoch, that have a material influence 
upon his after life. To be safe, let us go back 
to his progenitors. 
As males communicate their organizations 
with the most obvious effect, it is by no means 
singular, that great stress is laid, by breeders of 
horses and other animals, upon the appearance, 
physical conformance, and constitution of the 
sire. This is commendable. But farmers and 
breeders generally are not as fully aware as they 
should be, that various items, other than color, 
style, and figure, are transmissible from sire to 
son. These are contracted feet, founder, spavin, 
ring-bone, curb, sandcracks, diseases of the eye, 
and of the respiratory organs, as broken wind, 
roaring, wind-sucking, &c. We are as fully per¬ 
suaded, that these affections and diseases, are 
hereditarily transmissible, as that color, action, 
or temper may be so transmitted. 
At the late National Exhibition of Horses, held 
at Springfield, Mass., the writer was the chair¬ 
man of the Committee on Geldings,—in which 
class were 109 entries. Many of the finest horses 
subjected to their examination were found to be 
affected with ring-bone and other diseases of 
the leg and foot; and the reply to the questions 
of the Committee on this point, invariably was 
—“he was foaled so .” 
In this view of the case, it becomes breeders 
to look well to it, that the selected Stallion have 
no hereditary tendency to disease, or defect ca¬ 
pable of being transmitted to the offspring; for 
“ like begets like,” and as surely as a noble steed 
can mark his offspring with his good qualities, 
so certainly can he hand down also his imperfer- 
fections of temper and formation. 
If men are too often careless in the selection 
of a Stallion for purposes of breeding, what shall 
we say of their choice of a mare? Any old, de- 
crepid, diseased, purblind, she-horse, that can 
be procured, or that is found fit for no other pui’- 
pose, is considered good enough to breed from I 
And many such an old, good-for-nothing-but-the- 
compost-heap creature, is kept by farmers and 
others for this especial and only purpose. 
Knowing this, one ceases to wonder, that the 
country is stocked with such a superabundant 
supply of miserable, early-broken-down, and 
diseased horses,—inasmuch, that he, who now¬ 
adays undertakes to buy a horse on his own 
judgment, unless he goes with his eyes peeled, 
and had “ his eye-teeth cut” at an early period 
of his existence, will ordinarily, find himself sold 
remarkably cheap. 
“Any one,” says Mr. Castley, an eminent Eng¬ 
lish Veterinary Surgeon, “who, during the last 
twenty or twenty-five years, has had frequent 
opportunities of visiting some of the great horse- 
fairs in the north of England, must be struck 
with the sad falling-off there is every where to 
be remarked, in the quality of the one-half and 
,three-part bred horses, exhibited for sale. The 
farmers when taxed with this, complain that 
breeding horses do not sufficiently repay them; 
and yet we find large sums of money always 
given at fairs, for any horses that are really 
good. The truth is, that farmers do not now¬ 
adays, breed horses so generally good, as they 
used to do, and this is owing to the inferior 
quality of the mares which'they now commonly 
employ in breeding.” 
Some of the best mares, it would appear, are 
now purchased by gentlemen for saddle-horses, 
it being now', as it w’as not formerly, as fashion¬ 
able to use mares, as geldings, for riding pur¬ 
poses. A great number of the finest three-part 
bred mares, also, are imported to the Continent. 
These facts account for the deterioration of 
the horses in ordinary use in England, and most 
of them are in force here. Many an old broken- 
dowm creature is purchased or kept for a breed¬ 
er, because she is fit for nothing else! Fit for 
nothing else?—If fit fora breeder, (unless in¬ 
jured by some accident,) she is fit for any thing 
else. 
Sire and dam being judiciously selected, our 
next care is with the unborn colt—the foetus. 
“ Our next care," w r e say for the young courser 
may be starved or otherwise maltreated, as effect¬ 
ually before as after birth. The mare, when 
with foal, should be well but not too plentifully 
fed, should not be over-w'orked, nor yet allowed 
to lack exercise ; and should never be subjected 
to such rough usage, as it but too common 
among farm-hands and stable boys, who are 
ever overfree wfith the toes of their cowhide boots. 
Discharge such at once, after having treated 
them to a little of the same, to see how they 
like it; for no one taken down with the accursed 
disease of “ Cruelty to animals,” was ever radi¬ 
cally cured of it. 
It is well to offer the mare, immediately, and 
for a few days after parturition, a drink of luke¬ 
warm water with corn or oat-meal -or shorts 
mixed therein. She could then be permitted to 
run out to grass for a month at least, to recover 
strength ; though the common custom we know' 
is to put them in harness within a fortnight 
from foaling. 
Our young Stallion being now fairly in the 
world, and moving upon it on his own legs, his 
first experience of life is stirring. The old 
farmer has an errand at a neighboring village, 
distant some six or seven miles. “Put Bessy to 
the old chaise,” says he; and off drives w'ith 
commendable moderation, little Morgan trotting 
in company; but business being concluded at 
the store, rain threatens, or other cause induce 
a hasty return, and we see Bessy doing all she 
