Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1892 — LIVE STOCK. [ARTICLE]

LIVE STOCK.

Management as Horses. An English writer says that the question with the farmer is how best to feed the horses required on the farm. The food of the horse is naturally grass, and this will be the food of the young horse, with the addition of some hay in winter. As the horse Increases in age, so will it increase in working capacity, and its food will , have to become correspondingly , richer. Of the richer food, hay, oats and beans have been used from time immemorial. The hay is first cut fine in the chaff cutter, and then is termed hay chaff; straw chaff may also be given to the horses with advantage, mixed with its other food. Turnips and clover well cut up rffcd the former pulped, or even mashed, may be used with advantage in the winter and early spring. Subsequently vetches or tares will supply an early and valuable green food before putting the horse out to graze A horse must be fed frequently, and its food being prepared for it, grain being crushed, and hay, straw, roots, etc., cutup. The stable must lfte well ventilated, and contain a supply of fresh water. Such Is briefly the main outline of farming with regard to livestock; the objects which the farmer hasinv { ew, how to attain then® and how science has helped him. In the treatment of stock the main object on all farms will be to keep them healthy, and that at the present day is becoming more and more difficult. Every-

thing which tends to the abnormal growth of the animal tends also to weaken it and render it liable to disease, and less able to resist disease when It comes. Hence the greatest precaution should be taken by the farmer to prevent disease, the principle, “Prevention is better than cure,” being the invariable rule with him. Ot the predisposing causes to disease, want of cleanliness may be placed first as most frequent and most unjustllable; secondly, inefficient shelter: and lastly, contagion. The worst diseases which live stock are subject to arc undoubtedly contagious; therefore, as in man, so in animals, the best possible thing when the least disease occurs in the stock is to thoroughly isolate the affected animals. So important to the general agriculture of the Kingdom is this subject of contagious diseases in cattle, that the Government takes it up, but not efficiently, for though something is done to prevent the spread of disease, little is done to prevent the introduction of disease.