1 Nov., 1898. ] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 391 
With regard to dehorning, we would not fear it-reducing his prepotency. 
We regard it a serious matter to have the horns on a vicious bull; in fact, 
much more serious than the possible loss of considerable prize money. Dehorn- 
ing seldom quiets a vicious mature bull, but it renders him much more harmless 
than with his weapons. 
DEHORNING CATTLE. 
In a recent issue of Hoard’s Dairyman, a paragraph reads as follows :—A 
few experienced dairymen hold to the belief that, after generations, the 
practice of dehorning will be found to have been such a shock to the animals 
that they will decidedly degenerate. There may be something in this idea 
when dehorning is continued on mature animals, but such results hardly seem 
feasible if the animals are dehorned while calves. 
That the mere shcck of the act of dehorning should reverberate to several 
generations ahead, seems hardly probable, but experts in the art of dehorning 
acknowledge the fact that a bunch of nerves is severed and partly removed 
by the operation. That the nerve system is as highly developed in the new- 
born calf as in full-grown animals is a fact so well established that it needs 
no repetition, and there are those, and not the ignorant, who maintain that the 
nerve system is first in existence ; that it is the real centre, by some called the 
“soul of the entire organism, which is only animated by these mysterious 
electric wires.” Now, the question presents itself: Can a mutilated being 
beget that which it does not possess—i.e., a perfect organisation ; is an imper- 
fect organism able to resist endemic or contagious influence; may not vitality 
be lowered by the impediment encountered in the process of circulation, which 
is produced by the partial removal of these mediums ? 
INSECT-DESTROYING LADY-BIRDS. 
Tue Victorian Government Entomologist has imported from Western 
Australia some lady-birds which are said to be great destroyers of scale and 
other noxious insects. Small parcels of the lady-birds have been distributed 
over the colony. 
ABSORPTIVE POWER OF MILK. 
Wuutsr so much is being written about tuberculosis and dangerous milk, 
there are yet many people who will not believe that there can be any danger 
to the human system arising from drinking impure milk. They say, “ How is 
t our fathers did net die of bad milk? Tuberculosis was just as much a 
disease a hundred years ago as it is now.” But there was one advantage they 
possessed—there were no experts in dairying, at least none so called ; there 
were no thousand-and-one new fads in medical science ; and where ignorance 
was bliss, it would, say these agnostics, have been folly to be wise. 
Now, just to illustrate the aptness of milk to take up any odour in its 
neighbourhood: One of our dairymen left half-a-bucketful of milk for a few 
hours on a stand in his dairy. When he went for it, he was about to drink 
some, but was deterred by the peculiar smell. It was perfectly scented. Going 
back to the place he took it from, he found a scented pocket-handkerchief 
lying close to where the bucket had been. The milk had absorbed the scent 
from the handkerchief. 1t is well known to readers of the Journal that scents 
are extracted from flowers by the help of lard, which in a few hours will take 
all the scent contained in them, So with milk. Being of a fatty nature, it 
easily absorbs any scent near it. Strange to say, milk exposed to the odour of 
good barley ensilage is not perceptibly affected. 
