Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1873 — FARM AND HOUSEHOLD. [ARTICLE]

FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.

—ls sheep are not more than six years old their teeth will cut so closely that kernels Of grain will always get thoroughly masticated during the process of rumination. For this reason it will hot pay to grind grain for sheep. —Apple Tapioca Pudding.—Peel and core enough apples to fill a deep pudding dish, sprinkle cinnamon in each apple where the core came out, add some fine white sugar, a little piece of butler, then about a tablespoonful of tapioca for each apple, over the whole, and fill up with cold water. Bake until the apple is tender. It is a very nice’and simple desert. —Consumption of Food.—As a genera) rule, cattle, horses and sheep eat three per cent, of their live weight of food per day—that is, very near their own weight every month. But there is a vast difference among them as to the’ profitable results of their consumption of food. Some will merely keep alive, while others will increase in weight and size, or produce milk in much greater proportion for the food consumed. —“Breaking in” Boots and Shoes.—l. Never “break in” boots or shoes. If they are not easy when new, don’t take them, for the boots will break your feet oftener than your feet will break the boots. 2. If you go on “breaking in" boot leather, you will need a special last made with all sorts of knobs and protuberances to correspond with your distorted joints. Then you will be.sorry. 3. If you have- large feet, admit it in all honesty, and have your boots made accordingly. Then you will be happy. —Tlie following rule for estimating the dressed weight of live hogs we find in a late number of tlie National Live Stock Journal: “From the first 100 pounds deduct 25 pounds from gross ; fromlhe second 100 pounds deduct 12% pounds; from the third 100 pounds deduct 6% pounds,; all over tlie third hundred is net. Thus a hog of 300 pounds live weight will give 256% net weight, and, as a general rule, 43% pounds only should be allowed for shrinkage on every hog of 300 pounds or over. A hog of 100 pounds will net, 75 pounds; one of 150 pounds, 118%; one of 200 pounds, 162%; one of 250 pounds, 209%.’’ This, of course, is only as close an approximation as can be given for tlie general average of hogs as brought to market. If they are thin there is more shrinkage; if large and well-fatted, and especially if pure bred, tliey will often shrink even less. We have known instances where the shrinkage amounted to only one-sixteenth of the live weight. —How’ to Manage a Horse.—A beautiful and high-spirited horse would never allow a shoe to be put 011 his feet or any person to handle his feet. In an attempt to shoe such a horse recently he resisted aH efforts, kicked aside everything but an anvil, and came pear killing himself against that, and finally was brought back to his stable unshod. This defeat was just on the eve of consigning him to the plow, where he might work barefoot, when an officer in our service, lately returned from Mexico, took a cord about the size of a common bedcord, put it in the mouth of the horse like a bit, and tied it tightly on the animals head, passing bis left ear under the string, not painfully tight, but tight enough to keep the ear down and the cord in its place. This done, he patted the horse gently on the side of the head, and commanded him to follow, and instantly the horse obeyed, perfectly subdued and as gentle and obedient as a well-trained dog, suffering his feet to be lifted with impunity, and acting in all respects like an old stager. The gentleman who thus furnished this cxcedingly simple means of subduing a very dangerous propensity, intimated that it is practiced in Mexico and South America in. the management of wild horses.