1873.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
53 
Watering Stock in Winter. 
Much thoughtless cruelty is inflicted on our 
animals, which needs only to be exposed to be 
prevented. Farmers, and especially their boys 
who are not yet old enough, or rather have not 
yet learned enough, 
to think of conse- g _ 
quences, often put 
their stock in the 
unpleasant position 
depicted by our 
artist in the engrav¬ 
ing subjoined. He 
shows a couple of 
boys who have been 
sent to water the 
stock on a cold 
February morning. 
The creek is frozen 
over. The ice is 
smooth and slip¬ 
pery. The boys 
have cut a hole in 
the ice, and a thirsty 
cow has ventured 
on it to reach the 
water. Her position 
is a painful one to 
her, but an amusing 
one to the boys, who 
do not think of the 
fact that in a month 
or two there may be trouble when the cow is 
expected to have a calf, and the milk may be 
bloody, or she may have a caked bag, and the 
wonder will be why she should be thus troubled. 
Possibly, many who have written to us for ad¬ 
vice under these or similar circumstances, and 
who could not imagine any cause for the trou¬ 
ble, may now remember some such occurrence 
as this. They will then see a sufficient cause 
for it that might have been prevented had they 
known the possible result. The cows on the 
bank, who are sympathizing with their com¬ 
panion, will go 
home thirsty rather 
than venture where 
she is; and so will 
the sheep, waiting 
patiently and anx¬ 
iously for a drink, 
which they badly 
need, but are afraid 
to trust themselves 
on the ice to pro¬ 
cure. While they 
are waiting, shiver¬ 
ing on the brink, it 
is more than likely 
that some may get 
injured by a vicious 
cow, and so this 
bad management 
results in evil in 
many ways. On the 
other hand, where 
there is a well and 
pump at the barn, 
and a water-trough, 
the stock will be 
spared all this suf¬ 
fering, and all the injury resulting from drinking 
ice-cold water or going without any at all. If 
there is no other way to water stock but at a 
frozen pond or creek, a trough should be pro¬ 
vided there, and the water be dipped up into it 
with a pail, so that the animals may neither 
suffer from thirst nor from injuries occasioned 
by venturing on smooth ice. Water that is at 
the temperature of melting icc should not be 
given to animals, and especially to milch-cows, 
if it can be avoided. Much of the falling off of 
milk ascribed to cold weather is properly due to 
giving the cows copious draughts of very cold 
WATERING CATTLE THROUGH THE ICE. 
water. In some milk dairies there is provision 
made for warming the water drank by animals 
during cold weather. 
Diseases in Horses’ Feet and Legs. 
Readers of the American Agriculturist will 
have doubtless observed the numerous applica¬ 
tions made for advice as to the treatment of 
injuries and diseases of the feet and limbs of 
horses. Continually, month after month, there 
are dozens of inquiries of this nature. While 
A HEAVY LOAD UP HILL. 
we are always ready and in fact desirous of as¬ 
sisting our correspondents with advice in these 
cases, so many of them are utterly hopeless of 
remedy from their very nature, or impossible of 
relief in the way desired, that we can only make 
them texts whereon to found lessons of caution 
and prevention in the future. While the score 
or more of diseases which affect the limbs and 
feet of horses are almost wholly incurable un¬ 
der the average circumstances of the farmer to 
whom competent professional advice in nearly 
all cases is unattainable, yet it is equally true 
that with proper care and cautious treatment 
all these diseases 
' may be prevented. 
The foot and leg of 
a horse is a very 
complicated piece 
of machinery, full 
of the most delicate 
membranes, cords, 
hinges, springs, and 
cushions; each of 
which is exactly 
fitted not only to 
do certain direct 
work in enabling 
the horse to move, 
but in supporting 
the others, and in 
protecting it from 
injury. There are 
also secretions of 
joint-oil, synovia , a 
viscid fluid, the 
office of which is to 
lubricate the joints, 
and allow an easy 
motion of the head 
of one bone on that 
of another. The foot, so far from being what it 
is generally supposed, a lump of insensible horn 
that may be pounded on the stones, or rasped, 
cut, or trimmed into or out of shape, or scorched 
or burned, is, on the contrary, a bundle of the 
most sensitive bones and sinews, incased only 
in the insensible outside crust of the hoof and 
sole, and connected therewith by equally sensi¬ 
tive laminae or leaves, by which the whole is 
bound together. To preserve this delicate bun¬ 
dle of bones and sinews from shock and conse¬ 
quent injury, there is provided a soft elastic 
cushion, the frog. 
Now, wdien wc see 
a w'ikl pony on the 
plains, or a young 
colt gamboling on 
the soft elastic turf 
of a smooth mea¬ 
dow, w r c can ob¬ 
serve how beauti¬ 
fully all these parts 
act together, and. 
how graceful and 
elastic a step they 
enable the animal 
to exhibit, and, re¬ 
membering the ex¬ 
act balance of the 
parts Avonderfully 
provided by nature, 
can understand how 
injury is avoided to 
the most sensitive 
of them. But when 
we take the horse 
and cut away the 
frog, removing the 
safeguard there pro¬ 
vided for the sole of the foot, and pare away 
the crust, and fasten on a shoe of three or four 
pounds’ weight to each foot, and, in addition to 
carrying his own weight, compel him to draw 
heavy loads over roads paved with rough cob¬ 
ble-stones or sharp fragments of broken rock or 
loose pieces which yield and give way beneath 
