394 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
April  30,  1903. 
one  market,  and  we  fancy  last  week’s  frost  will  have  a  tale 
to  tell  of  shortened  keeii  in  seed  pastures.  By-the-bye, 
last  week’s  frost  has  caused  a  boom  in  the  Potato  market. 
We  heard  of  105s.  per  ton  being  the  price  offered  and  taken 
for  Up-to-dates  on  Saturda■'^ 
There  has  been  much  said  lately  as  to  the  undesirability 
of  growing  roots.  We  only  know  if  roots  are  scarce  we 
need  not  expect  a  great  price  for  our  autumn  lambs.  But 
it  is  not  the  fluctuations  in  price  that  the  farmer  dreads  so 
much  as  the  unexpected  losses  by  death  and  disease,  and 
we  cannot  always  be  forearmed.  We  have  had  two  classes 
of  loss  brought  vividly  before  our  notice  during  the  past 
few  weeks,  as  in  all  these  instances  we  know  something  of 
those  men  who  have  been  the  sufferers.  If  any  of  our 
readers  have  been  trying  to  buy  draught  horses  this  spring 
they  will  know  a  little  of  the  difficulty  there  is  in  procuring 
exactly  what  they  needed.  To  get  good  useful  horses  they 
will  have  had  to  search  far,  and  the  price  i^aicl  will  have 
been  no  small  one.  We  were  on  the  look  out  ourselves  for 
three  for'an  arable  farm  we  were  unexpectedly  called  upon 
to  manage,  and  we  have  had  to  attend  a  good  many  sales 
and  pass  in  review  a  good  many  animals  before  we  hit  on 
what  we  wanted.  The  reason  partly  has  been  a  hindering 
season,  which  has  thrown  everyone’s  work  a  bit  backward, 
and  the  spare  horse  has  been  bad  to  meet  with.  We  are 
going  to  tell  a  true  tale  and  a  sad  one. 
A  neighbour  in  the  very  press  of  the  sowing  season  was 
suddenly  called  upon  to  face  the  unpleasant  fact  that  four  of 
his  best  horses  were  seriously  ill.  That  is  a  shock  to  begin 
with  ;  but  worse  was  to  follow.  Before  the  vet.  could  be 
got  to  the  farmstead  an  ordinary  observer  would  see  that 
the  illness  was  nothing  of  a  tempoi’ary  nature.  Well, 
perhaps  it  was  temporary,  for  two  out  of  the  four  horses 
were  dead.  The  vet.  did  not  take  long  to  diagnose  the  com- 
laint :  poison,  and  of  a  virulent  kind.  It  was  absolutely 
opeless  to  attempt  remedies  in  the  case  of  the  third,  which 
though  still  living,  was  about  at  the  far  end.  The  fourth 
horse  had  evidently  either  got  rather  less  of  the  deadly 
drug,  or  having  a  stronger  constitution,  was  enabled  to 
throw  off  in  a  measure  the  ill  effects.  Whether  he  will  ever 
stand  a  good  day’s  work  again  is  a  question  which  will  have 
to  be  answered  at  some  future  time.  All  that  the  owner 
could  do  was  to  try  and  get  at  the  first  cause  of  this 
calamity.  What  poison  had  they  had,  and  who  had  ad¬ 
ministered  it '?  It  was  quite  impossible  that  the  horses  had 
got  it  themselves,  for  they  were  stall  fed,  and  the  food  was 
all  wholesome  and  good.  The  man  who  had  charge  nf 
them  was  the  guilty  person,  and  the  shock  of  the  three 
deaths  had  the  effect  of  making  him  speak  the  truth  at 
once.  He  had  been  giving  balls  or  pills  of  sheep  ointment. 
Now,  drugs,  to  be  effective,  must  be  of  necessity  poisonous, 
and  it  was  with  mercury  these  poor  creatures  had  been 
dosed.  Why  ?  To  give  them  an  appetite  I  To  act  as  a 
tonic !  To  give  the  man  his  due,  he  was  terribly  cut  up  ;  in 
his  ignorance  he  had  played  with  edged  tools,  and  the  result 
had  been  frightful. 
Of  course,  this  was  a  case  for  the  police  court,  and  the 
offence  could  be  punished  by  that  Act,  the  introducers  of 
which  were  the  late  Sir  John  Astley  and  Henry  Chaplin, 
Esq.  Being  practical  men,  they  both  knew  to  what  a  great 
extent  this  horse  drugging  was  carried  on  by  farm  servants 
in  their  own  county  (Lincoln),  and  they  tried  to  make  the 
punishment  sufficiently  deterrent  ;  but  going  through, Com¬ 
mittee  the  Bill  was  pruned  and  trimmed  till  it  has  almost 
failed  in  its  purpose.  The  farmer,  in  this  case,  loses  at  the 
lowest  computation  £100,  to  say  nothing  of  the  loss  of  time 
when  tramping  the  country  to  supply  the  vacant  places. 
The  man  appears  before  the  magistrates  ;  he  gets  let  off 
with  a  fine  of  £5  and  expenses. 
Now  we  contend  that  this  practice  will  never,  can  never, 
be  stopped  unless  something  is  done  to  make  the 
punishment  more  severe  and  more  lasting.  A  fine  is  a  mere 
nothing ;  as  a  rule  the  offenders  are  young,  unmarried  men 
living  in  the  farmer’s  house,  and  drawdng  a  remarkably  good 
wage. 
Of  course,  there  is  another  method  by  which  this  whole¬ 
sale  drugging  might  be  stopped,  but  it  will  not  be  done  in 
our  day.  If  these  lads  could  only  be  taught  the 
exceedingly  dangerous  nature  of  these  “  remedies,”  with 
which  they  play  so  carelessly,  there  might  be  a  chance 
that  they  would  desist.  We  know  much  blame  has  often 
been  thrown  upon  druggists  for  supplying  lads  with  poisons, 
but  in  many,  yes  in  most  cases,  the  lads  act  quite  independ¬ 
ently  of  a  druggist.  There  are  many  vegetable  looisons  at 
hand,  on  every  side,  and  we  fear  to  say  that  there  are  many 
unprincipled  characters  who,  for  a  few'  pence,  will  sell 
recipes  warranted  to  give  appetite  and  gloss  to  the  coat, 
and  also  warranted  in  the  long  run  to  cause  death  in  un¬ 
skilful  hands. 
The  swift  and  fatal  disease  known  as  anthrax,  unhappily,  is 
by  no  means  extinct,  and  yet  we  believe  that  many  farmers 
and  more  men  have  never  seen  a  case  in  their  lives,  and  yet 
they  are  expected,  should  a  case  occur  on  their  own  farms, 
to  spot  it  at  once — and  this  without  opening  the  victim. 
We  are  told  that  a  drop  of  magnified  blood  will  reveal  at 
once  the  presence  or  absence  of  this  disease.  Now,  how 
many  farmers,  we  should  like  to  know,  have  a  proper  micro¬ 
scope,  and  how'  many  know  the  exact  shape  of  the  anthrax 
bacillus  ?  We  fear  we  do  not,  and  we  are  not  very  sure 
whether  the  average  vet.  is  equal  to  the  occasion. 
There  are  several  ailments  from  w'hich  horned  stock  may 
suffer  which  do  not  affect  the  w'holesomeness  of  the  meat, 
and  the  farmer  will  often  kill  and  dress  to  save  further  loss. 
Woe  betide  him  if  by  any  chance  it  should  be  a  case  of 
anthrax.  The  plea  of  ignorance  is  not  for  one  moment 
allowed  ;  he  is  hauled  before  his  betters,  smartly  fined,  and 
loilloried  before  the  public  in  the  papers  as  a  rogue  and 
vagabond. 
We  do  not  for  one  moment  wish  to  defend  the  man  who 
w'ilfully  and  knowingly  disposes  of  diseased  meat,  but  surely 
in  a  case  where  sjnnptoms  are  so  obscure  and  doubtful  he 
might  be  less  harshly  treated.  We  have  in  our  mind  now 
two  cases  where  men  whose  lives  have  been  upright  and 
straightforward,  and  w’ho  would  not  for  the  sake  of  the 
price  of  a  carcase  have  imperilled  the  life  or  well-being  of 
anyone,  or  their  own  good  names,  and  the  treatment  these 
men  have  received  seemed  to  us,  to  put  it  mildly,  harsh. 
There  is  another  subject  for  which  we  have  a  passing 
word.  We  must  say  it  is  with  feelings  of  great  satisfac¬ 
tion  that  we  find  the  question  of  food  supply  in  time  of 
war  is  to  be  considered  in  eaimest.  We  do  nothing  here 
without  commissions,  and  a  Boyal  Commission  has  been 
appointed,  with  one  Royal  Prince  at  the  head,  to  thresh  the 
matter  out.  We  have,  from  previous  experience,  one  little 
fault  to  find  with  commissions,  and  that  is  by  the  time  their 
deliberations  are  at  an  end  people  have  almost  forgotten 
the  why  and  the  wherefore  of  their  being.  It  is  always  well 
to  have  two  strings  to  the  bow,  and  we  may  fairly  call  a 
strong  navy,  string  one.  But  what  if  there  are  other  navies 
stronger  than  ours  ?  What  then  1  A  reserve  stock  of  food 
would,  we  think,  furnish  a  more  comfortable  assurance  to 
the  multitude  than  the  finest  navy  in  the  world. 
Work  on  the  Home  Farm. 
With  cne  short  interval  the  weather  has  been  very  frosty 
and  cold,  but  very  favourable  to  fann.  work.  There  is  more  dust 
now  than  any  time  this  year,  and  very  good  work  can  be  made. 
On  the  heavier  soils  the  land  has  set  a  little  hard,  and  when 
moved  by  the  cultivator  is  somewhat  rough,  so  the  Cambridge 
roll  is  in  full  work.  It  is  a  round  of  drag,  roll,  harrow;  drag, 
roll,  harrow,  and  unless  rain  comes  soon  there  is  no  need  to  get 
the  twitch  off,  for  these  dry  winds  and  sharp  frosts  will  soon  kill 
anything.  The  frost  has  cut  the  young  Barley  severely,  but 
Wheat  holds  its  own  well. 
Pastures  which  were  stocked  early  have  become  terribly  bare, 
and  we  notice  several  fields  of  promising  Red  Clover  with  sheep 
in  them.  The  farmers  may  have  found  it  really  necessary  to  stock 
them;  but  it  is  a  pity,  for  the  sheei)  will  destroy  thi'ee  times  as 
much  as  they  eat.  Mowing  seeds  should  be  grazed  early  if  at  all, 
and  now  is  the  time  to  take  the  stock  out,  not  put  it  in. 
Turnips  have  been  useful  after  all,  and  we  heard  a  farmer 
lamenting  that  he  had  been  so  anxious  to  make  an  end  of  his 
Swedes.  As  we  write  we  see  a  field  of  gold,  viz.,  common 
Turnips  run  to  seed,  and  now  in  full  ffower.  The  roots  are 
worthless  as  food,  and  the  farmer  is  tiding  a  crop  of  Turnip  seed. 
Will  he  find  the  market  overstocked  ?  Mangolds  are  going  in 
very  well,  but  the  land  is  rather  dry  where  it  has  been  recently 
worked,  and  under  such  circumstances  it  should  be  rolled  to 
preserve  moisture.  It  is  very  wise  to  steep  the  seed  before  drill¬ 
ing  in  weather  like  this,  and  for  late  sowings  steeping  is  neces¬ 
sary,  as  the  seed  then  germinates  quickly,  and  time  and  season 
are  saved.  We  remember  steeping  some  seed  which  the  weather 
prevented  us  sowing  for  a  time,  and  it  was  sprouting  when  we 
drilled  it.  It  was  very  quickly  up,  and  made  a  fine  crop. 
The  present  is  very  bad  weather  for  young  cattle,  and  they 
must  be  closely  watched.  Ewes  also  are  liable  to  chills  which 
may  cause  garget,  so  if  any  appear  lame  in  the  hind  quarters  the 
cause  may  be  found  in  the  udders.  Place  in  a  warm  shelter,  draw 
the  teats,  give  a  dose  of  salts  in  gruel,  and  lubricate  the  udder 
with  goose  grease. 
