4887 
THE RURAL NEW-VORKEfr. 4ii 
£!)? ijcr'iXg rn.au. 
LIVE STOCK NOTES FOR JULY. 
HORSES. 
The hot weather is as exacting upon a horse 
as upon a man. The nervous system of a horse 
is quite as excitable as that of a person, and 
* the hot sun has a very great effect upon the 
nervous system, which is centered in the brain 
and spine. The head and neck are the more 
susceptible parte of the body, and a horse 
should be protected by a covering from the 
action of the intense heat upon these organs. 
A very simple affair will secure this. A twig 
bent over the head, and fastened to the strap 
loops of the bridle supports a sort of hood 
made of light, wires, which projects backward 
over the neck. This is covered with white 
cotton cloth, and a loose (lap lies upon the 
neck, protecting this and the cars from flies, 
but giving the freest passage to the wind un¬ 
der it. 
A white linen sheet over the back loosely 
fastened to the harness with large tasaels at 
the front corners to dangle about, the forelegs, 
will be a mast effective safeguard against flies, 
and the damaging bot fly especially. Bots 
are injurious when in large numbers, aud are 
disagreeable anyhow. They are easily kept 
iu check, and may be exterminated if every 
owner of horses would wipe off the eggs when 
the horses come in, with a sponge moistened 
with kerosene oil. The legs and shoulders 
should be wiped with such a sponge before 
taking the horses out to work. 
Feeding should be cooliug this hot season. 
Bran aud oats ground are not so heatiug as 
corn; and green fodder carried to the barn is 
better than compelling tired horses to work 
for their supper half the night. 
Keep the barn clean and the floor washed 
with water and a little carbolic acid and then 
sprinkle with plaster. The strong odor of the 
stables encourages tbe pernicious stable flies 
which keep the horses kicking all the mgbt. 
Have, the door and windows of the stable pro¬ 
tected with wire gauze or mosquito net frames 
to keep out flies, aud use bubach plentifully. 
It will pay well iu the saving of horse flesh 
and the better work done. 
Carry water to the field for the horses aud 
give the tired beasts a few minutes’ rest aud a 
drink every two hours. This will be also a 
gain in the work. 
Whenever it is possible give the horses a 
bath, a swim if it can be had, if not take them 
to the creek and elash water over thorn and 
then brush them off well with a scrub brush; 
tbe boys will be delighted with the fun aud 
the horses equally so. 
Mares with colts must not be over-heated 
or over-worked; the colt will suffer the most 
from it through the milk. Feed the marc with 
oats in preference to corn, and especially give 
bran smashes. 
Bran mashes arc most nutritious, laxative, 
healthful, and cheap summer food for all horse 
stock. Don't forget a daily allowance of salt 
of at least an ounce given iu the feed or on the 
green fodder; it is a sure preventive of colic 
and bloating. Never give fermented or sour 
food to n horse. Think at times what cau be 
done for the comfort and happiness of these 
lovable animals. 
CATTLE. 
Oxen working in tbe field must have rest 
for chewing the cud. They require twice as 
long to eat as a horse, and their heavy build 
compels them to travel slowly. Protect them 
from flies, and furnish them with a clean, com¬ 
fortable stable aud abundant fowl while they 
are working. It is unkind to make any ani¬ 
mal that has worked all day to walk all night 
to fill its belly. Look out for galls and bruises 
on the necks and shoulders; ill-fitting yokes 
and bows are the cause; also be on the watch for 
injuries to the feet from gravel aud stoues be¬ 
tween the hoofs ami from any wet tilth that 
may lodge between them. Keep oxen shod, that 
are worked on roads or stony ground. Cows 
require the best of care now to keep up their 
milk yield. Gather the suckers from the corn 
field and the surplus stalks for them. But a 
piece of corn should be [flanted specially for 
them uow the grass is beginning to give out. 
Soiled cows, that is, fed by soiling, are happy 
now and as far as possible cows should be 
soiled in J uly ami August when early sweet 
corn can be had in abumlauce. Cows should 
be kept, iu tho clean stables from 10 to 3 iu the 
hottest part of tho day, the stable windows 
darkened and the door shut. Freedom from 
flies will be equal to saving AO per cent, of the 
milk which would otherwise lie wasted. Use 
a sheet over the cows when milking, aud have 
a little helper with a bunch of large feathers 
or strips of rags to drive flies from the legs to 
make things easy for tho milker. It will save 
vast annoyance from stamping, kickiug aud 
switching the tail. A pound of buhach will 
go a long way and save $5 worth of milk. 
Keep up the feed as the milk seems inclined to 
decrease. Use card and brush vigorously and 
encourage insensible perspiration from the 
skin; it removes much had matter from the 
cow and keeps it out of the milk. 
Give the calves sweet skirumed-milk. 3our 
milk checks the growth of youuganimals, aud 
means should be taken to avoid the use of it. 
Look out for vermiu ami use carbolated vase¬ 
line or oil strongly scented with kerosene on 
the skin whenever they are discovered. 
SHEEP. 
The flock calls for special attention this 
month. Dangers and annoyances crowd tie: 
sheep now. Visit the flock every day aud 
count it every time you see it. If one sheep 
or lamb is missed find it without loss of time. 
It may be hidden away in a fence corner sick. 
Never let sheep and lambs crowd over bars 
let down only at oue end. They are apt to 
get their legs in between aud by being crowd¬ 
ed snap a bone iu au iustant. If this happens, 
bind it *ith splints firmly ami let the sheep 
go; the bone will unite very quickly. Look 
out for ticks on the lambs, and if any are 
found pour butter-milk on the wool, which 
will drive them off. Watch closely the ewes 
from which lambs have been taken, and if 
necessary take the milk from them. Look 
out, also, for blow flies, always ready to 
make victims of neglected sheep. Sheep suf¬ 
fering from diarrhea should be taken up and 
fed on dry food until recovered. Neglected 
diarrhea turns into fatal dysentery very' 
quickly. Such sheep should be especially 
guarded against flies, also pugnacious ones 
which bruise the heads or ears. 
SWINE. 
Push on young pigs. The most profitable 
pork is from those marketed when 100 to 130 
pounds in weight. Feed often and not in one 
or two excessive meals. Pigs have small 
stomachs and great appetites aud will easily 
gorge and over-feed themselves. But their 
digestion is rapid, and they cau put away use¬ 
fully a large quantity of food given “little 
aud often.” Over-fed pigs do not grow and 
are always ailing. Never give medicine to 
pigs, but stop their food and give their 
stomachs a rest. Provide a bath of some kind 
if only a clean mud-hole, for them to wallow 
in. It is their way of keeping cleau and 
Mother Earth is cleau aud sweet and the very 
best deodorizer for the odoriferous hog. Also 
provide fresh, green food in abundance. 
Sweet corn is the very best feeding for this 
season, aud a sufficient quantity of it should 
always be plauted early in May for their use. 
No one ever heard of a pig so fed being sick 
of cholera. Shade is not only agreeable but 
necessary. If nothing better can lie procured, 
some forked stakes driven iu tho ground, cov¬ 
ered with brush and then with earth dug out 
from between the stakes, leaving a soft, earthy 
bed for them, will be greatly enjoyed. Pigs 
that are kept in pens should have a clean floor 
to lie on, and a pailful of cold water thrown 
over it once a day. Try it and see how they 
will enjoy it and cleau their skins by the use 
of it An excellent drink for pigs of all kinds 
at this season is skimmed and butter milk with 
a little bran stirred in it. With sweet corn 
this will make meat very rapidly. Pigs that 
have reared litters may he bred this mouth 
for late fall pigs. Wean pigs that are four 
weeks old at once. 
ftural Copies. 
BUCEPHALUS BROWN’S NOTIONS AND 
IDEAS. 
City Folks in the Country.— Notbiug 
was ever more timely or more to the point 
than “Boarder’s’' remarks on p. 398-9 of the 
Rural for June 18. If a framed copy in plain 
type, on cardboard, could be furnished to 
every farm-house where city boarders are 
wanted, it certainly should do a world of good, 
aud probably would do some. The farm 
houses where all the points mentioned are 
observed with care, would never lack for 
boarders at good prices, and might take their 
pick of applicants. 
And That is no Small Item ; for the guests 
huvo their faults as well as the entertainers. 
Many most comical, uot a few odious, aud 
some abominable traits are betrayed by city 
boarders on the farm. I may well leave the 
subject for some well brougbt-up farm matron, 
with a sharp pen, to illustrate, from her own 
observations and experience, the things class- 
able under these three heads iu the conduct 
of vain, shallow-brained, ill-bred cits, when 
turned loose where they imagine that the peo¬ 
ple “don’t know anything.” Graphically de¬ 
scribed, it would lie much more amusing on 
paper than In fact. In the flue art of making 
themselves utter nuisances on a farm, a selfish, 
silly, under-bred, city woman and her children 
are.hord to beat. 
There is Land Enough in the Eastern 
States to employ’all'the farm labor on them, 
without touching that which cannot be fitted 
for machine tillage; and on that land alone 
more- than double the crops'can be made at a 
less expense, and with vastly more advantage 
than now accrues from the whole, as now 
managed. 
The Union ok Capital with Skill has 
never yet bad a fair trial in American’fann¬ 
ing. Capital is shy of agricultural invest¬ 
ment—mainly, I am persuaded, because of 
lack of available skilled labor. The average 
skill in bis art of the American farmer, or 
farm hand, is greatly below the average skill 
of the American mechanic. Trade, manufac¬ 
tures, transportation, with other urban oc¬ 
cupations, draft away the brains that are 
needed to give American agriculture the 
“boom” which it awaits. It is not a question 
of wages. We cau afford to give farm labor¬ 
ers as good pay for equal skill as is given in 
any other business—if we could only get it. 
But Where are the Teachers? I repeat 
that far less thought is put into agriculture 
than into any other occupation on our conti¬ 
nent. Probably this must continue to be the 
case, until the other avocations are so over¬ 
done and their profits so reduced that tbe 
trained minds among our people are forced 
back upon agriculture as being as good a field 
as any for their activities. Our agricultural 
colleges are not doing much, but a grand 
future awaits them. When they get the hang 
of their work, and settle down ta it with the 
confident swing of a mastered art, the boys 
will crowd to them, as they are now crowding 
to the great technical schools which have 
found out “ how to do it.” 
Of all Farm Foremen, a broken-down 
farmer of the old school is the worst. He 
knows about everything that “ain’t so,” aud is 
stubborn as a mule against every sort of im¬ 
provement. He will willfully strive to pre¬ 
vent the success Qf auy manner of work 
against which he is “sot,” and spends time for 
which he is paid in belittling the man who 
pays him, to his other help. High-class farm¬ 
ing is not possible without intelligent, inter¬ 
ested and well instructed labor; and that, in 
America, is to any great extent as yet impossi¬ 
ble to bo had. 
This is a Mighty Good Year for Grass 
in New England. The hay crop in Maine, New 
Hampshire and Vermont will be all of 35 per 
cent, above an average; and the pasturage 
which is more than half our grass, is quite as 
good, up to date. Are they going to make our 
farmers 25 per cent, better off in net income 
for the year out of what is made from grass? 
The unfortunate probability is that they will 
not. Many are not prepared to utilize this 
merchandise to advantage. More, who have 
the stock to consume it, will not know how to 
feed it so as to get its v»lue. The stock is not, 
in many cases, good enough to be highly foil 
with profit. Perhaps it is wiser than most 
writers for the agricultural press are apt to 
allow, for the farmers to sell this surplus hay, 
rather than try to get pay for it at home. But 
it is a pity that it should be so. 
Dainj ijnsbantm). 
HOT-WEATHER HINTS. 
T. D. CURTIS. 
As hot weather is at hand, a few seasonable 
hints will do no harm and may do some good. 
“Evil is wrought from want of thought,” says 
Hood. A hint may stimulate the mind to 
thought and save the doing of evil, or evil re¬ 
sulting from neglect. 
SHORT FEED IN PASTURES. 
Soon the hot, dry weather will strike the 
pastures, aud the feed will get short, when, 
from want of sufficient food, the cows will be¬ 
gin to unnaturally shriuk their messes of 
milk. If provision is not already made for 
soiling to keep up nutrition and the flow of 
milk, no time is to be lost iu providing for tbe 
emergency. It is better to go into the mead¬ 
ow aud cut gross for them than to allow them 
to get hungiy enough to reduce the flow of 
milk. At no other season of the year and un¬ 
der no other circumstance can you feed the 
product of the meadow to better advantage. 
There are some who maiutaiu that there is no 
better soiliug crop with which toekeout scant 
pastures. than grass-growiug on well-manured 
soil. It is better to feed it ami make other 
provision for winter fveiling than to permit a 
shrinkage of the flow of milk. Once reduced, 
it cannot be fully restored. 
GRAIN FEEDING IN SUMMER. 
Some of our best dairymen think it best to 
not only soil_and keep up 4 the.flow of milk in 
summer, but to feed a little grain to give sol¬ 
idity to muscle and richness to the milk. A 
little bran and corn-meal, mixed in about equal 
proportions by weight, will be found excel¬ 
lent for this purpose, ft will keep the cows 
iu good heart and add to the proceeds of the 
dairy. A lock of dry hay at each milking, 
to counteract the effects of so much succulent 
food, will be found to relish and to be bene¬ 
ficial to the health of the cows. It pays to 
give a little dry and concentrated food. The 
bowels of the cow will be in better condition 
for it, which means that it promotes digestion 
and nutrition. It is safe to say that the re¬ 
sult is more and richer milk. 
SALT FOR COWS. 
Cows should never be permitted to get hun¬ 
gry for salt in summer or at any other season 
of the year, as for that matter. But in sum¬ 
mer, especially, so much fresh and succulent 
grass calls for salt, and cows require it in con¬ 
siderable quantities—for, be it understood that 
common salt is one of the constituents of 
milk. It may not be in the soil, and conse¬ 
quently not in the grass growu from it, to any 
considerable extent. Then how is the cow to 
get it if it is not fed to her? How can it enter 
into the composition of the milk unless it is 
drawn from what is already stored up in the 
blood and tissues of her system? The system 
must contain a propet amount in order to 
maintain health. So there can be uo serious 
privation of salt without injury to both the 
cow and her product. Milk lacking salt is be¬ 
lieved to raise cream hard to churn. When a 
boy, the writer used often to hear bard churn¬ 
ing attributed to neglect to salt the cows. A 
remedy of the neglect was supposed to re¬ 
move the evil. It certainly did no injury, and 
the proper way is always to keep salt within 
the reach of the cows and let them lick it when¬ 
ever they want it. 
STAGNANT WATER. 
Where provision is not made for a perma¬ 
nent supply of good sweet water, and the cows 
are left to drink out of small streams and 
ponds, the water is apt to get stagnant and 
bad. Cows drinking such water will have 
their systems loaded with bacteria, aiga?, and 
other deleterious germs. These breed fever in 
the cows, aud appear in the milk to breed 
fever and sickness in whoever isso unfortunate 
as to consume it. A great deal of summer 
sickness is due to the stagnant and unwhole¬ 
some water which many herds of cows are 
compelled to drink in dog-days, when drought 
prevails. It is the duty of every dairyman to 
see that his cows have a full supply of whole¬ 
some water at all times. Those who neglect 
this should receive the attention of the health 
authorities, for the milk from such herds, or 
the product of such milk, is not wholesome 
food for human beings. 
CROP REPORTS. 
CANADA. 
(Continued from page 449.) 
Prince Edward Co., Ontario.—Apples and 
pears are likely to be a good yield this season, 
the fruit being well set and abundant. Small 
fruits look splendid, particularly raspberries, 
both black and red; few were winter-killed. 
Strawberries, when not well taken care of, 
were badly winter-killed; but mine look splen¬ 
didly and as a general thiDg there will be a 
great crop, only the price is too low; they sold 
on the market to-day at five cents a box. I 
had ripe Crescents and Dominions June 4,and 
Sharpless on the tith, something unprecedented 
here. Hops are not much grown here, but 
where planted they look well. This is a great 
dairy county and the factories are in full op¬ 
eration, the yield of milk being extra; hence 
more than the usual quantity of cheese and 
butter is made. The weather bas been rather 
dry for a couple of weeks hack and farmers 
began to look a little glum; but late rains 
have dispelled all fears of drought. A week 
or two more of this splendid weather will as¬ 
sure a bountiful harvest. J. F. 
Sneatrroy, Ontario.—The area of crops in 
this section is about the same as usual, com¬ 
prising fall wheat, oats, barley, peas, corn, 
grass, potatoes, maugolds, carrots or turnips, 
with very little rye buckwheat or other field 
crops. All of the above are looking tine, aud 
if not injured by storms will yield abuud- 
autly. Fruits of all kinds were never better 
or more abundant. Apples and pears very 
heavy crops, and small fruits are very plenti¬ 
ful. Potatoes from preseuc appearance may 
be worth 35 cents a bag next spring, and not 
$1 per bushel as at present. G. b. 
Truro, N. S.—Dairying is our principal 
industry, and we grow crops suited for milk 
making. Hay is our principal crop at pre¬ 
sent. It looks more promising than for some 
years back; but it has four weeks to grow aud 
much depends on the weather. The acreage 
of roots is increasing year by year. Man- 
