388 
JUNE IS 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
around the neck of each Tand tightened daily 
until the bunches drop off. If they are at¬ 
tached to the deeper structures it would be 
well to employ a competent veterinary sur¬ 
geon to remove them. 2 It is not advis¬ 
able to have too great a difference between 
the size of the mare and stallion, but witnin 
moderate limits there is no serious objection. 
Mares are frequently bred to stallions larger 
than themselves, as in the crossing of the im¬ 
ported Percheron on native mares. But for 
small mares a correspondingly small stallion 
should be chosen. 
STORING CELERY. 
W. B. T., Ashvtlle, N. C. —1. Should cel¬ 
ery be left in the ground over winter? 2, 
Why would it not be a good plan to leave it 
in the ground, bank up the earth well around 
the plants, put planks to hold it up, then mulch 
with leaves? My experience is that it will 
rot when taken up and put in trenches, the 
earth caving in on it. 
Ans. — 1. Lift it and store it. 2. In your 
part of the country (N. C.) this mode would 
answer very well. The main points to be ob¬ 
served in keeping celery over winter are dry¬ 
ness and low temperature, but, of course, it 
must not be so low as to freeze. In order to 
secure these conditions we find it best, in the 
North, to lift and store our celery close to¬ 
gether in out-door ridges which we can cover 
with boards and leaves or straw, or store 
it in shed or cellar. Preserving it. in the 
ridges in which it had been grown 
would entail much labor in banking and cov¬ 
ering. We have no difficulty in keeping cel 
ery till April. 
STRINGY MILK. 
G. L. W., Idana , Kan. —My cows give 
stringy milk; a small tumor forms at times in 
the teit, ard after one or two milkings it 
breaks and when the teat i3 pressed what looks 
like decayed milk comes out in chunks and 
sometimes in strings. Sometimes it forms 
in the udder on a larger scale, and unless 
care is exercised, straining the milk .will be 
impossible. What should be done ? 
Ans.— Inject such teats after each milking 
with a solution of five grains each of carbon¬ 
ate of soda and permanganate of potash in an 
ounce of water, using a small syringe with a 
small probe-pointed nozzle. Give each cow, 
in the feed night and morning, two drams of 
hyposulphite of soda and one ounce of sul¬ 
phate of soda. If the trouble is in one or two 
teats only, it is probably due to injury or 
faults in milking, and this quarter may be 
bathed with camphorated spirit. But if the 
trouble is general, it may be due to unwhole¬ 
some food or water, which should be corrected. 
SPLINTS IN A COLT. 
H., Whit eland, D ah. —How can splints be 
removed from a colt’s legs ? They are on the 
inside of the front legs near the fetlock joints. 
Ans. —You should have been more definite 
in your description and given the age of the 
colt, when the splints appeared, presence or 
absence of heat, tenderness, or lameness, etc. 
In the absence of these data, we will suppose 
the “splints” were present when the colt was 
born, in which case they are congenital and 
we could not advise treatment without a per¬ 
sonal examination. If they do not cause 
lameness we would advise no interference. 
* RUPTURE IN A HORSE. 
A.. B., (No Address) —What should be the 
treatment of a ruptured horse ? So far as I 
can make ouf, the rupture is near the place 
from which a testicle was removed in a bung¬ 
ling castration. 
Ans. —In this case it wou’d be best to em¬ 
ploy a competent veterinary surgeon to ex¬ 
amine and operate on the horse. Without a 
personal examination,we could not safely ad¬ 
vise you as to the operation in a case of this 
kind. 
BONE AS A FERTILIZER. 
C. N. B.. Elizabeth , N. J. —Is “rotten bone 
manure” as good a fertilizer as ground bone? 
2. Wbat is the difference, if there be any. 
Ans.—L oss nitrogen and more moisture are 
the differences. Whether it is better or less 
valuable depends upon its fineness and mois¬ 
ture. The finer it is, the more soluble are its 
food constituents. 
Miscellaneous. 
Ans. —The teat should be well milked out 
at each milking or oftener. The swollen 
quarter should be frequently bathed with hot 
water, and belladonna ointment should be ap¬ 
plied. The milk will probably come as soon 
as the swelling and heat disappear. 
D. N. H., Manchester, la. —1. Why cannot 
one raise radishes, turnips, beets and other 
root crops on old land, even if well enriched, 
as well as on a newly plowed meadow or 
prairie sod? What elements are lacking? Is 
there any commercial fertilizer that will sup¬ 
ply them? 2. Where can one get a pair of 
bellows for blowing powder on plants to kill 
insects, worms, etc. ? 
Ans. —1. We know of no reason if the land 
is well enriched, except that insects partial to 
crops accumulate as they are raised from year 
to year, to injure either the root or leaf. If 
any food constituent is lacking in the soil, and 
one can find out what it is, chemical fertili¬ 
zers will supply it. 2. The pest bellows are 
the Woodason for sale by most seedsmen. 
DISCUSSION. 
J. C. S., Shad's Gap, Pa. —Who make and 
sell sheep masks? 
Ans. —We do not know. Can any of our 
readers answer. 
A. R. A , Mill Brook, Conn. —I supposed a 
cow’s teats were all right when I dried her off 
last winter; but now she has a calf and I can 
get no milk from one of the teats. The bag is 
somewhat hard and swollen. What should be 
done! 
THE FLESH OF DISEASED ANIMALS NOT 
UNHEALTHFUL. 
J. J. H. G., Marblehead, Mass— “The 
poison of the rattlesnake is injurious when 
taken into a person’s stomach ” remarked Mr. 
Stewart incidentally in the course of his ex¬ 
cellent article on the effect of night-soil on 
the quality of vegetables, in a late Rural. 
It is no more so, however, than other med¬ 
icines, if I have read correctly, for in crude 
practice it has been administered in this way 
as a medicine. It is necessary to bring it in 
direct contact with the blood before its pois¬ 
onous characteristics are developed. If the 
liberal use of night-soil made the vegetables 
raised from them unhealthful, then the popula¬ 
tion of this vicinity, having used for about 
40 years vegetables raised principally on this 
plant food, should demonstrate in shortened 
or unhealthy lives the sad fact, but, on the 
contrary, we claim to be as healthy, robust 
and long-lived a people as can be found in any 
section of these United States. Prof. S:orer 
wisely remarked that the process of cooking 
would destroy all germs capable of injuring 
health, were there any present. This impor¬ 
tant fact has not had due weight given it in 
discussions relating to the unhealthiness of 
diseased food, either animal or vegetable. 
Established facts make it safe to say that it 
matters not of what diseaso an animal may 
have died, or in what degree of putridity the 
flesh may be, when it is thoroughly cooked it 
becomes perfectly healthful human food, and 
that therefore the elaborate precaution taken, 
especially in large cities, to prevent the sale 
of such tood, cannot be defended on the 
ground that it is injurious to health—the 
right foundation on which to rest an argu¬ 
ment in defence of such municipal regulations 
is the existence of a sentiment born of our 
high civilization, which leads us to turn with 
disgust from the very thought of such a diet. 
I have said that there are established facts 
which prove this: let me give an illustration 
on a large scale. A college mate who has 
been a resident of northern India for over 30 
years, once wrote me the result of the obser¬ 
vations of himself and an English physician on 
the effect on the health of one of the lowest 
castes into which the natives of that country 
are divided, of a long continued diet on flesh 
of animals which had died of various diseases. 
He stated that by immemorial custom the 
flesh of all such animals became the property 
of this particular caste. At the time he made 
his observations they were feeding on the 
bodies of cattle, some 10,000 of which had 
died of a disease akin to putrid fever, in that 
hot climate causing much of the meat to be 
in the first stage of decay before it was cooked. 
The observations of the English physician 
were made on the same people under similar 
circumstances, and they both agreed in their 
results which were, that this particular caste 
were not only exempt from all of those dis¬ 
eases which have been assumed to be caused 
by eating such diseased food, but, on the con¬ 
trary, they were remarkably and exception¬ 
ally healthy. With this demonstration before 
us, of the perfectly innocuous character of 
diseased meat after it has been thoroughly 
cooked, while it would not be wise to go and 
do likewise, nevertheless a knowledge of such 
facts may save us, who can have but little 
knowledge of the ante-mortem history of the 
meats we buy, from suck unprofitable fear, 
and should lead legislators to place all the pre¬ 
cautions taken to prevent such food from being 
put upon the market on the only foundation ! 
on which they can honestly rest, viz., a defer¬ 
ence to public sentiment rather than defend 
them as necessary for the protection of the 
health of the.community. The nose and eyes, 
nature’s”poliee, that stand guard over our 
mouths, to give warning of the approach of the 
unclean, to protectour health,are really all the 
police we need. Those who choose to eat meats 
whose condition may disgust us may take com¬ 
fort in the fact that the temperature necessary 
for cooking, by either the roasting or boiling 
process, must destroy all germs whatever 
injurious to health, even the dreaded trichinae. 
It is a comical fact that the habit of eating 
what we of the common people call spoilt 
meat, forms a connecting link between two 
extremes of the race, the wealthy gourmand 
who covets his “gamy” flavor, and the low- 
caste, half-civilized East Indian gnawing with 
a relish the bones of his half putrid buffalo. 
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS FOR FARMERS. 
Professor F. C. Short, Madison, Wis.— 
A late number of the R. N.-Y. makes the 
statement that “any farmer would make 
money by knowing whether his hay was above 
or below the average in value,”’ and also that 
the “rules governing the analyses ol feeding 
stuffs can be so simplified that any man can 
learn to analyze hay and grain.” The first 
statement is probably true. There is no doubt 
that anything which would enable the feeder 
to estimate accurately the value of his fodders 
would be a great benefit to him, enabling him 
to feed them to the best advantage; but it is 
an open question if a chemical analysis alone 
would be of any advantage to him. The chem¬ 
ical analysis of a fodder, as an indication of 
its feeding value, is at the present time much 
oyerrated. The value of a fodder depends 
on the amount of digestible nutrients it con¬ 
tains, and this is determined by th > condition 
of the fodder, soil, climate, time of c utting.etc. 
For example, oat straw may contain from 0.19 
to 3.50 per cent, of digestible albuminoids; 
clover from 3 to 11 per cent, according to the 
time of cutting. The digestibility of the al¬ 
buminoids of meadow hay ranges from 39 to 
79 per cent. In fact, all fodders are subject to 
like variations. Consequently a chemical an¬ 
alysis alone tells us but little of the value of a 
fodder, and, unless it is taken in connection 
with other data, is absolutely useless. These 
other data the farmer has under his eye. He 
knows the condition of the fodder, the time 
of cutting, whether his animals eat it eagerly 
or not. Having all these conditions under his 
observation,the question is whether the farm¬ 
er cannot feed just as intelligently by taking 
the average of a large number of analyses and 
determinations for the t value of his fodders. 
The complaint made by the R. N.-Y. that, ac¬ 
cording to analysis, there is a variation of 10 
to 50 per cent in the value of samples ot the 
same fodder is certainly a true one, but it is 
also true that the percent, of digestible nutri¬ 
ents has as great or a greater variability 
and unless we are able to combine both the 
percentage composition of a fodder and its di¬ 
gestion coefficient, the average of a large 
number of fodders taken from the table would 
prove a better guide than a simple chemical 
analysis, however accurate. Fortunately 
considerable liberty may be taken in adjust¬ 
ing the ratio of carbohydrates to albuminoids 
without any losi in economy of feeding. Al¬ 
though the results of many exoeriments have 
shown that a nutritive ratio of 1: 5.4 will give 
the best results, yet the same experiments also 
show that a feeding standard like the above 
can have only a general value, and that feed¬ 
ing must be largely influenced by the individ¬ 
uality of the animal as well as by the quality 
and value of the fodders used. The farmer 
who looks carefully after the quality of his 
fodder and takes the figures given in the 
tables for its composition and digestibility 
and makes up his rations accordingly, will 
find just as good results following his feeding 
as if he made a chemical analysis and a di¬ 
gestion experiment with each fodder in the 
barn. To the second statement there is but 
one answer, and that is that it is absolutely 
impossible for the farmer to make an analysis 
of his fodders. Expensive apparatus and long 
training are necessary for work of this kind. 
In place of its becoming more simple, fodder 
analysis is becoming more complicated. It 
would be much more practical for the fanner 
to attempt the manufacture of his plows and 
wagons, a line of work in which he has some 
practical knowledge, than to attempt the an¬ 
alysis of fodders, a line of work in which he 
would be utterly at sea. 
THAT CHURN CONTEST AGAIN. 
P. B. S., Concord, N H.—In the Rural of 
May 25 a paragraph tells of the test of three 
different churns at the New Hampshire Ex¬ 
periment Station; but all the important re¬ 
sults are not given. In the three trials made 
at that time, 128 4 pounds of cream were used 
in each churn. The results were as follows: 
Davis Swing made 39.81 lbs. ot salted butter. 
Stoddard made.... 40.53 “ “ “ “ 
Blanchard made... 41.12 “ “ “ “ 
Why is not that the best churn which will 
make most butter of at least equally good 
qve.ity, from the same quantity of cream? 
And is it not about time to bury that old 
“ chestnut ” that the inside floats of the Blan¬ 
chard churn injure the grain of the butter 
and interfere with its granulation? This as¬ 
sertion has been demonstrated time and again 
to be utterly false, and it is well known that 
some of the finest butter in every respect has 
been made in the Blanchard churn. All but¬ 
ter comes in granulated form, and the process 
may be stopped at the desired point in one 
churn as well as in another. We th'nk the 
manager of the experiments wandered a little 
outside of his province when he stated in his 
report which churn he liked best. We want 
the hard facts which resulted from his experi¬ 
ments, not his opinion as to the comparative 
merits of the different implements. There 
are plenty of good butter-makers of much 
longer and larger experience than he possess¬ 
es, who would not agree with his “opinion.” 
MILK FOR CHILDREN. 
P. H. R., Downieville, Cal.— “I cannot 
refrain from saying a word about the ideas of 
Dr. Learned concerning the assorted super¬ 
iority of cow’s to mother’s milk for children, 
as quoted in the Rural of March 23. The 
ideas are too absurdly ridiculous to deserve 
notice, and were it not for the fact that some 
ignorant mother might attempt to fol¬ 
low such advice, and tearfully regret it, I 
would not care to use the Rural’s valuable 
space to discuss it, however briefly. In the 
discussions at all the late conventions of med¬ 
ical men the subject of dietetics has occupied 
a prominent place, and the feature pertain¬ 
ing to infant feeding has been the most prom¬ 
inent ot all; and the medical men universally 
agree that in both theory and practice the 
mother’s milk is the best food for infants, and 
that the food most nearly like mother’s milk 
is next most desirable. Cows’ milk is quite 
dissimilar to woman’s milk. And many foods, 
theoretically like that of the natural mother, 
fail to give at all similar desirable results. 
But for that most pernicious idea that 
mothers cannot, without great personal sac 
riflce, nourish their offspring at the breast, 
the present alarming infant mortality would 
be greatly reduced. And if there is a per¬ 
sonal lo3s attached to the feeding of the 
infant in the natural way, surely that is one 
loss from which the natural, pure-souled 
mother would gain exquisite pleasure. 
NUMBER OF HENS TO A ROOSTER. 
“Wyandotte,” Cranford, N. J.— The 
Rural's resolution, as expressed in Brevities, 
hereafter to take all its eggs for setting from 
a small pen of hens mated with one rooster, 
needs some qualification. That several roos¬ 
ters runuing with a large flock of bens, give 
very unsatisfactory results, is a fact long 
since recognized by breeders,for one will either 
be boss of the roost, and keep ail the others in 
mortal fear of him, or else there will be per¬ 
petual war in the camp to the utter neglect 
of business. Tne only satisfactory way of 
getting fertile eggs is to keep one rooster with 
a single pen of hens. But how many hens? 
That depends. In case of the large, heavy 
breeds, like the Brahmas, with their deliber¬ 
ate ways and sluggish temperaments, a-half 
dozen hens to one male will be enough. With 
the medium weights, like the Wyandottes 
and Plymouth Rocks, the number may be 
doubled; while the festive L c ghorn, or the 
foppish Minorca rooster will attend to from 
15 to 25 hens with more satisfactory results 
than a smaller number. These conclusions 
are not the result of guess work or fine-spun 
theories, but of observation and experience. 
Other considerations are the age and condi¬ 
tion of the male. A fully matured, vigorous 
rooster may be allowed to serve a greater 
number of hens than a young or undeveloped 
one, though the latter should never be used. 
INSECTICIDES. 
I. R. H , Mountainville, N. Y.— For the 
past 13 years I have used pure pyrethrum 
powder for the destruction of the cabbage 
Flea-beetle by throwing it through the foliage 
with an air-gun. In 10 minutes’ time the 
pests are usually all dead. I think this will 
prove an effectual remedy for the potato-flea- 
beetle. [The proper name of the pest is the 
Cucumber Flea-beetle—Haltica cucumeris— 
but it appears to be quite as partial to the po¬ 
tato as to any other plant Eds ] It is equal¬ 
ly effectual for the striped squaffi-bug, kill¬ 
ing it in the same time. It answers also for 
rose-bugs, for which posts I myself used it 10 
years ago, but it takes about a half hour to 
kill them. It also answers for the green cab¬ 
bage worms, taking about one hour to kill 
them. There is hardly an insect or worm 
around here, that I have not killed with it. 
It will kill wasps in about 15 minutes. The 
most difficult thing to kll has been the black 
squash bugs as it takes them two hours or 
more to die. 
H. N.-Y. We have tried Bubach in water 
without any effect. Thanking Mr. Hawkins, 
we shall try the dry powder. 
