1900 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
395 
Ailing Animals. 
ANSWERS BY DR. F. E. KIEBORNE. 
Galled Shoulders on a Horse. 
What is the treatment for a horse that 
has been scalded by the use of the pad, to 
bring the hair in its natural color instead 
of white? a. m. 
Amsterdam, N. Y. 
Use benzoated oxide of zinc ointment 
(which can be obtained of any druggist) 
until the surface is healed over. Then 
as a hair stimulant, apply equal parts 
dilute acetic acid and chloroform shaken 
together, bathing the shoulders lightly 
two or three times a week. 
“Blind Teeth" in Horses. 
Is there any truth in this extract from 
an old English paper (the Family Herald, 
London, June 15, 1844), and if so, how is the 
condition explained anatomically? 
“The correspondent of an American 
paper writes as follows: 'I observe that 
you are desirous to obtain all the infor¬ 
mation you can collect, about blind teeth 
in horses. This was a subject entirely 
new to me last Summer, when one of 
my horses had nearly lost the use of his 
sight, which I attributed to overwork, he 
being of a restless disposition when at 
work. Sometimes after predisposition to 
blindness was discovered (the sight of one 
eye being almost, if not entirely, gone), he 
was sent to the blacksmith to be shod. 
The smith’s (sic!) told the boy that if a 
certain tooth (pointing it out to the boy), 
was not extracted, the horse would soon 
be entirely blind; and, without my assent, 
took a hammer and a piece of bar iron, as 
described by the boy, rather barbarous ex¬ 
traction, and knocked it out. The boy 
saw that there was no evidence of pain 
exhibited by the horse, and that the tooth 
dropped out with the first stroke of the 
hammer. Whether this was the cause of 
blindness or not, I cannot say; but the 
horse very shortly afterwards recovered 
his sight, which has since continued 
good.’ ” 
What is the origin of the expression 
“eyetooth?” M- D- 
Boston, Mass. 
There is no truth in the oft-repeated 
statement that the so-called “blind 
teeth,”.or “wolf teeth” of horses causes 
blindness; neither is there any physical 
or anatomical foundation for such be¬ 
lief. There is a widespread superstition 
among farriers and horsemen that this 
insignificant, rudimentary tooth is often 
the cause of blindness in horses, and 
that its removal will prevent such blind¬ 
ness; but it is one of the whims that has 
been handed down along witb “hooks in 
the eye,” “hollow horn” in cattle, and 
“black teeth” in pigs. Fortunately for 
the horse, the removal of the “wolf 
teet'h” causes the animal very little in¬ 
convenience, so that the practice of re¬ 
moving the teeth, although entirely use¬ 
less, is not to be condemned on account 
of cruelty, as are many of the barbarous 
operations often practiced upon our do¬ 
mestic animals as the result of ignorant 
quackery. ^ am unable to give the ori¬ 
gin of the term “eye tooth,” which is 
applied to the canine teeth of man as 
well as of animals. 
An Imported Jersey.— At Fig. 113 is 
shown one of the Jersey cows to be sold 
this week (May 30) at the Cooper auc¬ 
tion sale. This cow, Sultanne of Brook- 
hill, was imported September 5, 1899. 
The catalogue description reads as fol¬ 
lows: 
Solid fawn, black tongue and switch. 
Handsome head, with prominent eyes, thin 
long neck, very sharp in withers, strong 
straight back, with broad hips, a whip tail, 
skin as thin and line as seen on any 
Thoroughbred horse, neat in bone, enor¬ 
mous wedge-shaped body low on leg, very 
large and prominent milk veins, both on 
udder and belly, very large udder, with 
large and well-placed teats. Sultanne of 
Brookhill has milked since last calving as 
high as 22 quarts daily. She is very per¬ 
sistent, and although the feed and accom¬ 
modation while at Quarantine was nothing 
near being first-class, it took us a long 
time to get her dry. She is the type of a 
dairy cow that we often read about, but 
rarely see. 
She is certainly a strong, vigorous 
animal, with great capacity for making 
and delivering milk. Her pedigree shows 
that she carries in her veins some of the 
most famous blood of the Island. 
Drilling Oats and Peas. 
Reading from week to week accounts 
of the best way to seed oats and peas, I 
am led to give my experience, which 
has expended over a space of 10 years. 
Until five years ago I followed the plan 
of either plowing peas under, or using a 
disk harrow to try to get them in deep. 
Five years ago I purchased a press drill, 
and since then have mixed peas and 
oats, and put them in with a press drill 
at the rate of two bushels of oats and 
two bushels of peas per acre, machine 
measure, which falls a little short of 
actual measure, and have had uniform 
success in getting a large crop. I use 
them for soiling, making hay of the ex¬ 
cess. Prof. C. D. Smith was here last 
Summer, when we had about two-thirds 
of the peas and oats cut; they would 
reach nearly to his shoulder when stand¬ 
ing alongside where they were cut, and 
he is a man about five feet 10 inches 
high. He said that they were the finest 
stand he ever saw, and after informing 
him how they were put in, it made it 
even more impressive. I believe that 
with rich land, or with plenty of barn¬ 
yard manure, this way of seeding will 
produce as large a crop as the other. 
Ten acres of last year’s crop were made 
into hay, and went over five tons to the 
acre of cured hay, but it was a very hard 
job to cure it. We used tedder on it 
three days, then raked and cocked, then 
opened cocks two different times, and 
had fairly good haying weather while so 
doing. There is one drawback to feed¬ 
ing oats and peas to milch cows; if you 
feed all they will eat, and eat clean, 
when there are peas in the pods, it will 
taint the cream so that it will be very 
offensive when used, especially in coffee. 
This year I intend feeding as a soiling 
crop for about 10 days, then make one 
job of it by putting in silo. Too much 
trouble to cure for hay. I have 15 acres 
this year. w. s. c. 
Menominee, Mich. 
MOSQUITOES AMD MALARIA. 
What is the Connection? 
For several years there has been a 
growing conviction among investigators 
that the minute organism causing mal¬ 
arial diseases was generally transmitted 
to man through the medium of mosquito 
bites, and enough proof has lately been 
collected to render the theory very 
plausible, though it cannot be consid¬ 
ered as definitely proven at this time. 
It has been found that several species 
of mosquitoes are quite constantly in¬ 
fected by the malarial plasmodium, 
whicn is a little yeast-like cell, undoubt¬ 
edly of vegetable origin, but Which can 
thrive and enormously multiply at the 
expense of the blood corpuscles of mos¬ 
quitoes, human beings and a number of 
warm-blooded anirnais. It has been 
shown that when a mosquito draws 
blood from a person or animal suffer¬ 
ing from malaria, some of the germs 
living within the blood corpuscles are 
freed by the digestion of the blood and 
soon attach themselves to the walls of 
the mosquito’s Stomach, where they 
quickly increase into a numerous colony, 
forming a funguS-like protuberance 
through the wall of the stomach. When 
these germs mature they discharge 
themselves, like mildew or smut spores 
on a leaf, into the circulation cavities of 
the mosquito, who is then charged with 
active germs, of which he rids himself 
by injecting them into the next person 
or animal he may be able to “bite.” 
So far as observed the presence and de¬ 
velopment of malarial germs do not 
seriously interfere with the comfort of 
the mosquito and only a few of the 
night-flying species have been found to 
act as hosts of this malarial plas¬ 
modium. If theSe claims are correct 
some practicable method of preventing 
infection with malarial poisons, by re¬ 
ducing the number of mosquitoes in in¬ 
habited localities, will doubtless be elab¬ 
orated. Farmers should see to it that 
mosquitoes are not allowed needlessly to 
breed about their homes. A neglected 
rain-barrel thus contains the possibili¬ 
ties for spreading the dreaded malaria, 
and should Jways be kept carefully cov¬ 
ered in Summer. Kerosene or any light 
oil placed in small quantity on stag¬ 
nant water will spread in a film and de¬ 
stroy the larvae of mosquitoes and other 
aquatic insects very quickly. It will 
thus be possible to render large areas 
of swampy lands inhabitable at a com¬ 
paratively small expense. An item has 
been going the rounds of the press 
claiming almost miraculous powers of 
destruction of mosquitoes and malarial 
germs for permanganate of potash. It 
states that "one teaspoonful of perman¬ 
ganate will purify the water in a 10-acre 
swamp, destroying all mosquitoes and 
disease germs.” As a matter of fact per¬ 
manganate of potash is a fairly active 
disinfectant and deodorant for surgical 
purposes, but used in the manner indi¬ 
cated would have but little more effect 
than a similar quantity of table salt. It 
would require several ounces to disin¬ 
fect the water in an ordinary rain bar¬ 
rel, and it would rapidly be decom¬ 
posed by the organic matter present and 
soon lose its chemical powers. Further 
information cs to the character and 
method of malarial infection is looked 
for with much interest. w. v. f. 
Australian dairymen have been making 
experiments with packages for long-dis¬ 
tance shipments of butter. The best re¬ 
sults were obtained in boxes made of six 
pieces of window glass, the edges of which 
were covered with gummed paper. Then 
the box was covered with a layer of plaster 
of paris ti-inch thick. This being a bad 
conductor of heat, the butter is not seri¬ 
ously affected by changes of temperature. 
The cost of packing is said to be only two 
cents per pound. Some cases have been 
made holding 100 pounds or more. 
Vermont Horses.— There has been quite 
an advance in the price of farm horses. 
They are not very plentiful. A good team 
costs about $400; this would include har¬ 
ness and wagon, some more, while, of 
course, others can be bought for less. The 
prices of single teams for farm purposes 
vary from $75 to $150, for what would be 
called fair horses. Generally speaking, 
homebred horses are to be preferred to 
western. Homebred are the most largely 
used on farms. I do not think the heavy 
draft horses are liked very well, except 
for very heavy trucking. The horse that 
sells the best here is a good driving horse, 
that will weigh about 1,100 and will also 
work if desired; an all-purpose horse, 
Morgans preferred. c. d. 
Northfield, Vt 
Scours in Calves.— Tell the subscriber 
who has the calves scouring, pagd 347, to 
feed about one tablespoonful of whole peas 
three or four times a day until improve¬ 
ment commences. I have cured scours 
when the calves had got so weak that they 
could not stand. If they are too weak to 
feed put the hand in the mouth with the 
peas in, and pour them down; they will not 
choke. a. n. s. 
Canada. 
Scours in Calves.— Heat a piece ox 
wrought iron that will weigh two or three 
pounds red hot; put this in the milk to 
warm it before feeding. You will soon see 
small oily-looking bubbles rising on the 
milk. Feed the calf as usual, warming the 
milk this way and there will be no trouble 
with scours. I had one so low I had to 
hold him up to eat the first mess in the 
morning, and by night he was much im¬ 
proved. I had tried all the remedies men¬ 
tioned on page 347, and to no effect. I have 
not given one drop of medicine since, and 
have as nice a calf of its age as anyone. 
Hope this may benefit others as it has me. 
m. s. 
EMPIRE 
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