4889 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
234 
But “there’s room at the top” Fat cattle 
are worth about $3 00 per 100 pounds. Do 
Eastern consumers get their steaks at a 
correspondingly low price ? We appreciate 
the Rural. m t. 
Ohio. 
Flushing, Belmont County, March 4 —The 
past mouth has been somewhat wintry. The 
mercury has reachel zero two or three times. 
Fall and early winter were quite wet. No 
scarcity of water; little snow. Bal roads al¬ 
most all winter. Wheat that got a good start 
in the fall is looking well. Corn matured 
slowly and late: since, spoiling in crib. Wheat 
is selling at $1.00; corn, 50 cents; apples, 25 
cents; hay, $15; potatoes, 40 cents, w. l. a. 
Oregon. 
Oakville, Linn County, March 13 —I am 
just in receipt of the Rural for March 9th; 
how does the paper get across the continent 
so fast? This number is a regular farmers’ 
institute; so I think is every issue of the 
R N.-Y. There is little need for any other 
farmers’ institute to a reading, thoughtful 
farmer. My wife says she must have her 
name entered for the potato contest, and my 
wee lassie, Clara, says she will help her ma to 
grow the potatoes. We had an immense crop 
of potatoes last year, aud there is no market 
this spring. Some of the cows, however, are 
very fond of them. Is it not a pity that they 
are such a perishable crop? We have had a 
very mild winter with frost enough on one oc¬ 
casion to kill tne tomatoes. Plowing and 
sowing have gone on nearly all winter. W e 
used to be happily free from insect pests in 
this country, but we had a full crop of cod¬ 
dling moths last summer. Our horses and cat¬ 
tle were driven nearly frantic by a fly which, 
they say, was brought here by the Northern 
Pacific railroad. It resembles a house fly, 
but is a regular bl iod-sucker. We want the 
entomologists to introduce some other insect 
that will prey upon these and so rid us of 
them. R . L. s. 
Pennsylvania. 
Scottsville, Wyoming County, March 16. 
—We bal a very open, wet winter with but 
little snow, not having any very hard freez¬ 
ing weather. Wheat is looking well so far. 
Produce of a’l kinds is very ow—corn, 43 
oents per bushel; oats, 38cents; rye, 45 cents; 
wheat, $1; hay. $15. per tm; butter, 20cents; 
eggs, 14 cents. Times are very hard and dull 
for farmers and laboring men. We are so 
Fig. 81. 
close to the Wyoming and Lackawanna coal 
regions that dull times there make quite a 
stringent market here. Miners are at work 
only on half time. I hope that each Rural 
subscriber will try to get at least one yearly 
subscriber to the Rural. That will double- 
its subscription list. I certainly think that 
if the farmers have a true friend it is the 
Rural New-Yorker, and we ought by all 
means to help our best friends. J. G. F. 
£arm ©caturnu}. 
RACKS FOR.TOOLS. 
The Farm Implement News recently printed 
several designs for racks suitable for holding 
various kinds of tools in every-day use. We 
show them at Figs. 84, 85 and 80 The draw¬ 
ings are such that no explanation is required. 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
[Every query must be accompanied by the name 
and address of the writer to insure attention. Before 
asking a question, please see If it is not answered In 
our advertising columns. ABk only a few questions at 
one time. Put questions on a separate piece of paper.] 
INDIGESTION AND IMPACTION IN COWS. 
E. A/., Circleville, Texas .—What is to me a 
new disease has killed most of my cattle. 
They were raised on prairie with sage”grass. 
In August, 1837, the weather was so dry that 
the grass was all gone, they were moved to a 
mountainous country 150 miles away in five 
days. All were doing well until the blizzard 
in January, 1888. Then many of them had 
their noses and udders frozen. In the spring, 
just as grass began [to appear, they began to 
die. Some would slobber and look wild out 
of the eyes and would run over everything, 
seeming crazy for water, and if they came to 
a high bluff they fell off, either drowning or 
breaking their necks. If they could get to the 
water they would sometimes drink until their 
Fig. 82. 
hides would burst; at o‘her times they would 
drop dead first. Some would run until they 
fell; almost all were mother cows or young 
heifers. Others would swell up under the 
jaws and if the tumors were lanced, they 
would discharge a black, very offensive pus. 
The animals seemefi to have no use of their 
fore-parts. All died that were so affected. 
Others were taken with diarrhoea and their 
droppings were as black as ink and so offen¬ 
sive as to cause sickness; those affected in this 
way had no use of their hips. A few were 
cured by giving lard. Some had the disease 
twice and a few the third time. Most of them 
ate until the last; and none ever refused 
water. They were never able to get up after 
they had been taken; they had to be lifted. 
Then they could stand very well. They 
groaned and seemed to be in great pain while 
down. Some lived a few hours while others 
lived tor two, three and four weeks. Almost 
always those that were in the best order were 
taken. After death, on each carcass, there 
was a black strip eight inches wide around 
the body ju-t back of the shoulders and under 
the neck and breast, and they had the appear 
ance of having been beaten with a hammer, 
and the gall was as large as a half-bushel. 
The carcasses of all were so offensive that 
they could hardly be skinned, and by starting 
the skin arouud the neck and fastening a rope 
to it the entire hide would peel off, owing to 
the presence of a jelly-like substance between 
the hide and body. The bones were so rotten 
that they would break to pieces in turning 
the cows over. What is the cause and is there 
any remedy ? 
ANSWERED BY DR. F. L. KILBORNE. 
The disease appears to have been indiges¬ 
tion with more or less impaction of the first 
and third stomachs, followed in some cases by 
complications as indicated by the varied 
symptoms. This disease is commonly called 
“dry murrain,” “impaction of the third 
stomach,” etc , and when it occurs on pasture, 
“grass staggers.” In this case we cannot say 
just when the trouble began. It may have 
been due, in part, to the starvation and ex- 
posure during the winter, or wholly to the 
feeding in the spring. At this time the cattle 
were evidently in poor condition with a rav- 
Fig 83. 
enous aopetite, aud in picking the young 
grass considerable quantities of the old, dead 
grasses of last season were also eaten. It was 
eating this coarse, dry, indigestible food that 
probably caused the indigestion and impac¬ 
tion. Such feeding is not infrequently the 
cause of fatal outbreaks of disease on the 
range in fall, winter and early spring, and 
also in late summer droughts. So suddenly 
do these outbreaks occur, and so rapidly do 
the animals die, that they are occasionally 
mistaken for outbreaks of some contagious 
disease. The disease is not contagious, 
however, but due to the common cause— 
dry, indigestible food. The proper treat¬ 
ment at the outset would have been 
to have given each cow one to two 
powders of a mixture of equal parts of Epsom 
salt3 and common salt, with one ounce of 
ginger to each cow. The dose should be 
given dissolved in two or three quarts of warm 
water. If this did not move the bowels in 
15 or 18 hours the dose should be repeated. In 
severe cases also give one ounce each of sul¬ 
phate of soda and ginger, and one-half ounce 
of carbonate of ammonia in a pint of cold 
water every four hours until relieved. Owing 
to the difficulty in giving medicine to a large 
herd of range cattle, it is better to take some 
general precautionary measures to prevent 
the disease. During the fall and spring, or 
at any other time when the cattle are com¬ 
pelled to eat large quantities of these dried or 
dead grasses, special precautions should be 
taken to ward off the ill effects of such feed¬ 
ing. When possible, it is, of course, desirable 
to supp’y suitable food. But when this can¬ 
not be done, see that the cattle have free,daily 
access to common salt, have an abundance of 
good drinking water conveniently at hand, so 
that they can drink frequently instead of tak¬ 
ing in larger quantities at longer intervals 
A daily ration of coarse bran or shipstuff 
containing an ounce of sulphate of soda to 
each animal, could be given with advantage. 
RECLAIMING A WET FARM. 
P. H., Fort Wayne , Ind .—In 1888 there 
was a large body of land lying west of this 
city comprising about 40.000 acres, drained 
by a large system of ditches to such an extent 
that it is believed that the ditches carry off 
all the water that falls upon the land, and all 
that may run on there even at times of ordin¬ 
ary floods. They can lower the water level 
at least eight feet below the surface of the 
ground. This tract of land will average about 
a mile aud a half wide, and a small stream 
emptied its waters into the upper end, but the 
land being so flat it soon had no channel nor 
did any of the other creeks, of which there 
were several, have any channel in this low 
Fig. 84. 
land. The streams that poured their waters 
over this land were very rapid and deposited 
over tne prairie a great portion of the silt or 
soil that they gathered from the high land. 
About one-third of this land was covered 
with soft timbers such as elm, black ash, etc. 
The other was open and produced all kinds of 
grasses from Red-top and Blue-joint, to bull- 
rushes. A part of it—perhaps one-third of the 
whole extent—is noted by tne first surveyors 
in 1S20 to 25 as being prairie. I bought some 
400 acres -of this laud on the north, within 
about twenty rods of a station on the Wabash 
railroad. On the north side, and perhaps a 
third of the west, there is a surface formation 
that most people would denominate muck, 
that will run from six inches to six feet deep. 
It is all underlaid with silt or rather marl 
formation, and uuder that clay hard-pan. 
This muck is very black and has lost its vegeta¬ 
ble or pasty look, so that when one spades 
up a shovelful, it falls off of the shovel or 
crumbles down from the pile like soil. 
Tnrough the center of my farm there runs an 
island, as it is called, that is raised perhaps 
from eighteen inches to ten feet above 
the prairie. The soil on this is rather 
of a sandy nature, although the timber 
that has grown upon it, was all kinds of 
burr oak, beach, hickory, etc. To the south 
of this islaud my farm is entirely covered with 
timber, mostly black ash, elm, maple, with 
considerable white ash,some sycamore, cotton¬ 
wood, burr oak and white oak. I want to 
make a very fine farm out of it, and am pro. 
posing to thoroughly tile it and if possible to 
increase its fertility to a very high state. I 
can get lime (quick-lime) from the kilns a few 
miles from me delivered at my station for 
about a dollar to a dollar and a quarter per 
ton. I am about seven miles from this city, 
with a good road as well as the railroad. I 
have been thinking some of having several 
varieties or the soil analyzed, but have 
had some doubt as to the practicability of 
doing so. I wish you would give me your 
ideas as to what would be the best general 
course to pursue. 
Ans.—S uch land as this ought to be rich 
enough to make “a fine farm” without any 
help but draining and good tillage, and the 
regular manuring which follows a judicious 
system of farming That better timber has 
not grown on it is due to the wetDess of the 
land and not to the infertility of the soil. 
Fig. 85. 
Possibly the land having been wet so long 
contains various acids which would be neu¬ 
tralized by the lime and thus be much improv¬ 
ed. Lime is not manure and in this case 
would be simply useful for the chemical effect 
mentioned and its mechanical influence in 
making the land more firm and solid. Hence 
two tons per acre (50 bushels) spread after 
draining and plowing might be beneficial. 
Analysis of the soil would hardly be any help. 
ABOUT CREAMERIES 
T. J. H.,East New Market, Md. —1. What 
should be the size of a creamery building for 
a patronage of 200 cows ? 2. What kind of 
machinery should be used and how much will 
it cost ? 3. On what basis can a creamery be 
run satisfactorily ? 
Ans.—O n the supposition that the creamery 
is for the purpose of handling gathered milk, 
to make butter, it will be found that a one- 
storv building will be most convenient, and 
one 25 by 50 feet with 12 feet studding, will 
be found to be of handy working shape and 
be ample in space to put in all the needed 
tools and machinery, except that it may be 
well to have a small boiler-room in an L ad¬ 
joining the side, placed so as to be most con¬ 
venient for connection with engine and ma¬ 
chinery, inside of the main building. Enough 
from the north end of building may be taken 
for an ice-house and cold-storage room,to hold 
accumulations of butter for,say, two or three 
weeks. This would leave a room 25 by 38 feet 
for storing vats for milk, separator, cream- 
tank, churn, butter-worker, engine, pumps, 
and skim-milk receptacle. Where lumber 
can be had at an average of $16 per thousand, 
and foundation stones for but little more than 
the cost of putting them on the ground, such 
a building can be made for about $500, build¬ 
ing it much as silos are now built, so as to 
make it both warm and cool; though two by 
four studding would do, whereas a silo would 
need two by 12. This is independent of the 
water supply, as that varies so that an esti¬ 
mate would be useless. 2. There should be a 
ten-horse boiler, at least a six-horse engine, a 
separator, storing vats, churn, pumps for 
water and milk, if needed, butter-worker, 
scales, the necessary piping for conveying 
water and steam, stove, and weigh-can and 
small utensils that need not be specified The 
cost of all these with a separator that will 
cream 1,500 pounds per hour, would be from 
$1,000 to $1,200, ready to get up steam. The 
kind of separator,as well as the kiud of steam- 
power, must be determined by the buyer, and 
need not be stated here, as there are now two 
main rival kinds, both good. There are rea¬ 
sons why each is preferable for some purposes. 
The buyer must know bis conditions for using 
either, and not asK us to decide for him. 
3. Let the creamery be run as most other 
