Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1891 — FARMS AND FARMERS. [ARTICLE]

FARMS AND FARMERS.

HOG CHOLERA. A. H G., ’of Green County, writes as follows on hog cholera. After Stating that the report of Secretary Rusk has a good deal to offer on this dread disease, he says: I fail to find one word in the report upon which the farmer can rely as a defense against that scourge. This is something that a great many farm ers are interested in, for Jwe read every season of certain sections that are afflicted almost to annihilation. Plenty is written about cattle plague but nothing that will help the hog raiser. In this vicinity last fall many farmers lost all tneir swine from some disease akin,' at least, to cholera. This’year my shoats are taken sick with scours and some with great sores or ulcers on the side of the head. Mouths are deformed by a general wasting away of the muscles. There has been no inbreeding, as the sire and mothers are 2 years old and not of kin. Some that escaped last year are troubled this yearend vice versa. Can you give through The lijtcr Ocean a cQ”jmon,sense talk on this disease,and oblicre, i In answer to A. H. G. we desire to state that we think he has done the very valuable report of Secretary Rusk a great injustice, or else he has read it superficially. From page 110 report of 1890. to 132 we find a very able and exhaustive report of what has been done by the department to obtain knowledge for the prevention of cholera and swine plague. All of the pains taken, investigations and experiments there noted, and the soundest kind of common sense being the conclusions of trained, accurate minds based on common facts. On . thousands of farms, as on that of A. H. G.,, either swine plague or cholera is raging and is doing very destructive work. | The Bureau of Animal Industry, aided by the best volunteer talent in the country, has been hard at work is acopmon sense way to understand these two diseases, the law , that governs their operations, and i the remedy, if any can be found. It is a minute and subtle disease. It takes time, the keenest and besttrained discernment, and infinite patience to get at the truth. Decided progress has been made, considering i What we did not know at the beginning. It has been determined that both are germ diseases; that the bacilli of each can be defined, and that, to a certain extent at least, these diseases can be prevented by inoculation. All this is progress, even if it is necessasily slow. Meantime it becomes the duty of every farmer to consider that he is somewhat responsible. Every farmer should study to know what are the proper sanitary conditions for keeping swine, for he may be aiding cholera or swine plague just as did the farmers of Quantico, Va., by allowing infected animals to roam at large. It is quite clear to us that ■ the future remedy will not be dosing or doctoring, or some cure at all, but the putting in practice of preventive sanitary measures just as vaccination, not dosing, has nearly rid the world of small-pox, Mr. G. gives us no evidence to show that he has done anything vigorously himself to stamp out this disease on bis own farm. Those ulcer-eaten hogs should be destroyed, we believe, and all of the hog range thoroughly disinfected. Cartain it is, that if the cholera germ remains on the farm, it will infect every fresh hog that is brought there.. The idea of preventing contagious disease has not taken firm hold of .the American fanner. We have known, when, hogs had access through carelessness to the excreta of persons sick with the measles. Result—measles in the hogs, spreading often as virulently as swine fever and often mistaken for cholera. Lime is a cheap and powerful disinfectant, to be used in and styes. Absolute quarrantine against infected farms should be insisted on. The

bacilli cannot fly, but it can be carried by men, dogs, streams of water and the hog himself. Theodore Louis well says: “Farmers might as well stop hog-raising unless they are willing to quit the old. filthy way of handling hogs. These dreaded diseases make ’eternal vigilance’ the price of exemption. I know no cure all. My only reliance is in preventives. Cholera with hogs, as with men, is largely the result of filth.” Louis dusts his pens and ground plentifully with lime weekly, and the manure is carefully collected and drawn to the field each week. No new animal is introduced into the herd until it has shown a quarantine that it is perfectly healthy. A constant supply of charcoal made of corn-cobs burned in a pit is kept on hand, also a supply of eoperas, carbolic acid sulpher, etc. Mr. G. does well to pay strict attention to breeding, but these infectious diseases smite the thoroughbred h6g as well as the scrub. THE PRICE OF WOOL. Speaking about the low price of wool, the American Sheep Breeder and Wool Grower of Chicago says: “The wool market at present is dead full; the farmer can not even persuade anybody to make him an offer for his clip. Why is it? The farmer need not trouble himself trying to answer this ,conumdrum. Let him simply lock his wool up in a dry, dark, clean room and keep about his ordinary business, forgetting except when he reads the market reports once a day, that he even has any wool. There is as certain to be a demand for that wool—-if it is firstclass—as the sun is to rise, if not next month, then the month after, or six months latter. Conversing with a woolen manu-

facturer the other' day, we inquired as to the state of the'wool market. He informed us. that medium wools were in fair demand, but that, fine wools were a drug on the market. In explanation of this he stated that in anticipation of the passage of the McKinley law the manufacturer made heavy importations of fine grades, so that for the present they have but little use for the American clip. If this be true the advice of the Wool Grower to hold is. sound. When the manufacturers have exhausted their imported stock they will be ready to offer prices for the domestic. It takes a little business nerve to be a farmer occasionly. The reports of thrashers are to the effect that the yield of winter wheat, rye «and oats in Southern Wisconsin is better than has been known for years. Mr. A. O’Brien, of Cold Spring, Wis., reports the surprising yield of twenty-five bushels of oats from 100 average bundles. This is vouched for by the thrasher. A peck to the bundle is a grand yield. The quality of all the cereals above mentioned is first class, ABOUT SHEEP. Preparing early lambs for market is a profitable business where facility for shipment is had and the farmer understands how to handle them. In March last dressed lambs weighing thirty pounds sold in the Boston market for each. The price indicates that such carcasses were very scared. In this, as in all kinds of animal farming, there is a chance to get good pay for individual skill, intelligence, and energy. There is always room on the upper- shelf of farming. The' year 1893 wilV soon be here and Chicago will be a great market for all the finer grades of farm produce. Don’t try to compete in the production of the coarser products. The men who never think but a profit, but rather starve it, hold that ground, and you can’t compete with them in the production of poor butter, poor- mutton and poor grass. The best profit is made in the production of an article where there is a chance to sell skill. There is a splendid chance for profitable study along these lines. In handling sheep the three prime objects are wool, mutton and lambs. Upon the character of the first will depend the character of the last two. If we breed for fine wool, our mutton and lambs for nfarket purposes will be inferior. The logic of hard events seem to indicate that the best policy is to breed for medium open wool and a heavy mutton carcass. The American farmers have a great many things to learn in the successful handling of mutton sheep. The business needs special study and special intelligence.

Turnips and sheaf oats make a cheap and excellent combination for the winter feeding of sheep. A young man with small capital, starting into the business of fanning, could hardly do better than to get some cheap land, stock it with two or three hundred good mutton sheep, and put in these two crops for feeding. With his own labor he could grow and store enough of this forage to carry such a flock, and would get better pay for labor and better interest upon his capital than in almost any other way. In no manner does system in English agriculture show to better advantage than in the management of sheep. Flocks are restricted to a given area, instead of being allowed boundless range. The sheep are confined within certain limits by hurdles, which are advanced daily.' Thus they are given at one time only so much land in grass as they can eat off clean, and when through with that space they have thoroughly manured it, so there is waste neither of grass nor of manure.—Farmers’ Home.

THE WAY HE DOES. Charles W. Hill, a well posted Guernsey breeder of Wisconsin, gives the following advise: Keep only the heifer calves from the best cows you now have. Take the calf from the cow as soon as dropped, and if it is cold weather throw a blanket over it till it gets dry. Then feed it milk from the dam. I find it needs special care to have the milk warm in cold weather. Put a little hot water in it. We give the calf new milk until one or two weeks old. according to the strength and size of the calf. Then give skim milk once a day for another week; after that our calves have nothing but skim milk. We commence with six pounds twice a day, or a little less if we feed three times. If you have the time it certainly pays' to feed a calf three times a day the first month. Lately I have been giving a teaspoonful of sennet extract with each feed of skim milk and am much pleased with the results. We warm the milk in an old milk can set in a cauldron kettle with a pail or two pf water in it. In that’ way I never have any sick calves from drinking burned milk. Let the calf get the milk at blood heat. It commences to eat hay at two weeks and oats at four weeks. Keep some of the best clover of June grass hay where they can get it, and give them all the oats they will eat up to four quarts per dav. I fed half bran and half oats this last winter. I seldom ever let our calves out of doors all winter, by the way I am raising fall calves now, unless for an hour some very warm, sunny day. Avoid giving your heifers corn or anything that will cause them tQ lay on flesh, as that will surely injure them for making good cows, /I am sure if these details are mixed up with a little gumption you can’t help but have good calves. ’This is just the way I care for mine and I have good success.