no lack of improvement in the quality of the mares in any locality were there were good, sound stallions. Four or five years ago there was a scarcity of mares possess ing size and quality in his neighborhood; efforts were made to supply stallons through the medium of a limited liability company, and two good animals, the best to be procured, were by that means brought into the neighborhood, L 3 8s being fixed as the service fee. The effect ■was to induce the breeders to possess an improved class of mares to send to the horses. It was not always that people could be got to take the initiative in such matters, but it was taken in that case, and every one now felt that the result had proved most satisfactory. He was satisfied that if really good-sized, sound stallions were imported into any locality three would he a demand on their services at re munerative fees. The paper which had been read that evening was an admirable one, and he hoped the result of it, and the discussion, would be to give a great impetus to the movement for the breeding of the Shire-horse, for which there is an undoubted demand, and which also is re munerative to the farmer to breed. Mr T. Aveling (Rochester) said horses did not seem to be anything like perfect yet. Owing to some cause or other a great number of cases of disease occurred, and it might perhaps be well to consider whether it would not be possible to substitute for the horse something that would give a little less trouble. Some years hack he had un fortunately a great deal of experience with regard to the diseases to which Prof. Prit chard alluded, and had suffered from them all in a more or less degree. In the case of the iron horse there was nothing of that kind. If anything were wrong with his tubes it was easy to put it right; there was in that case no difficulty in making a diagnosis of the disease and applying a remedy. They were quite right in doing their best to improve the cart-horse as far as possible, but it was not horses that would do the chief work of the future in farming. It should be remembered that, however good their horses might become,

they would always be dependent upon the skill of their men ; and if they had ever so good a horse, they must have a man who •was equally good to manage him. A great deal ot care and attention was necessary to keep a horse in good condition, both on the part of the owner and on the part of those, whom he employed ; even when horses were properly broken, it was not easy to hammer into them how they ought to be managed. He knew that what he was might sound to some rather shoppy, but he repeated that the bulk of the future work of agriculture would not be done by horses. Mr T. Carroll (Longcliffe Lodge, Lough borough) agreed with Mr Finlay Dun with regard to the importance of attending to temper in horses. There had been neglect in reference to that matter. He thought it would be well if Professor Prit chard or some one would be good enough to give them information as to the breed ing of cross-bred horses. In his opinion, the action of the Shire Cart-horse Associa tion would do a good deal of good. Professor Pritchard then replied, in answer to a question by Mr Garrett whether navicular disease was hereditary, that at the present time very few persons who had studied the matter seemed to have any doubt that it was so. Even after an experience extended over thirty or forty years, a man might entertain sloubts as to whether a horse was affected _ with bone spavin or with navicular disease» but in the case of sidebones there could be no reasonable excuse for doubt. A man had only to draw ♦hehand open down the leg on to the fleshy part of the heel. If there were an absence of sidebone the part would readily yield to pressure, while, on the other hand, if sidebone existed the part would feel as hard as the bones in any other part of the body. As regarded that Mr Street said respecting the contagious character of the disease among his horses, if the disease did not become chronic he should doubt whether it was in fact opthalmia at all. He should rather think it was simply a bad case of influenza in which the eyes got into an inflamed con dition, than that it was due to any con tagion or infection. As respected bony enlargement, he would remark that when an animal once became affected with splint, or ringbone, or sidebone he never got better of it. When once an animal became affected with splint it was always affected, and the same remark applied to spavin and sidebone. There were high-stepping carriage horses and other kinds of horses hammering their feet in London week after week, and year after year. Not one in fifty of those horses had sidebones, because no predisposition existed. If a cart-horse had been bred from a sound animal they might work him on the stones as other horses were worked upon them, without sidebones being produced. He did not say that, sidebones might not occasionally be produced in sound animals, but he believed that, in nine cases out of ten they were the remit of a predisposition. He had stood with astonishment'aloogside judges at horse shows when animals having sidebones had

been placed before them, and they had said, “ Oh ! its only a nut, or something of that kind,” and bad awarded to such animals a prize. While such things took place it was not to be wondered at that so many cart-horses were affected with disease. As to curve, that was a disease of the hock which some regarded as in some way hereditarv, and others would not admit to be so. He looked upon it as hereditarv, not on the same grounds as some considered it to he so, but simnly because the form of the limb was hereditary. If there were a limb which had not a sufficient angle at the hock, or a limb in which the angle at the hock was greater than the ordinary angle, he though there must be an hereditary disease that gave rise to the curve. Although the disease might not be herediary, a want of proper care often brought out a predisposition to sprain, and he maintained that in that sense the disease was hereditary. He was of opinion that if animals were properly attended to as re garded the materials upon which they were fed, were fed at. regular hours, and were worked regularly and moderately, no ad vantage being taken of them, and nothing being done beyond what a horse might be fairly expected to do. very little more would be required to keep them in good condition. He would give them an ex ample of that. Only the night before he inspected professionally something like 650 horses. Those horses were nearly all at work every day. He believed that of the whole 650 not 6 rested one day in , fortnight; and during the last winter which was so trying to horseflesh generally, they were, he believed, not more than twenty cases of illness among all those horses. If asked to what he attributed that satisfactory state of things, he would reply that he attributed it to regularity of feed ing, and thorough regularity of manage ment. He hoped that that hint might prove useful to many owners of horses by showing how horses might be kept in good health, although they performed a large amount of work.

Major Dashwood (Kirklington Oxford) said, in moving a vote of thanks to Pro fessor Pritchard for his very excellent paper, that it should be borne in mind that that gentleman had a very large experience in connection with the management of horses in London. A question having been asked in reference to the Cart-horse Stud Book, he wished to say that it would be in the hands of all the members of the Association on the following day. In re ference to the mouth of the horse, he would observe that he understood him to mean that the formation of a good mouth de pended very much upon the judgment and skill of the man who rode or drove.

Mr E. Stanford, in seconding themotion, said he should have been glad to have heard the Professor’s opinion with regard to what was called “ bog spav in.” The motion having been cirried unani mously, Professor Pritchard, in returning thanks, after again apologising for the brevity of his paper, and expressed bis gratification that there had been such a gond dis cussion, said, in reply to Mr Stand ford, that bog spavin was simply an enlargement of the capsule of the principal joint in the hock, and was due to the secretion of a considerable amount of fluid there, and that it was of very little consequence, add ing that he had seen hundreds, and he might even say thousands, of cases, and that he could not call to mind more than one or two in which that form of spavin caused a serious defect in the animal.

Miscellaneous.

TREATMENT OF ROT IN SHEEP. In reply to the question of a correspon dent, we extract the following directions from Professor Simons’ pamph’eton “Rot in Sheep,” just published by the Royal Agricultural Society ;

Stomachics or carminatives are likewise required, and of these we give a prefer ence to aniseed in this affection. A good compound of these medicinal agents with some highly nitrogenised alimentary mat ters, we have in the following formula. Take of finely-ground oilcake (linseed), 1 bushel; finely-ground pea-meal, 1 bushel; finely-ground salt, 41b ; finely-ground ar niseed, 41b ; finely-ground sulphate of iron, lib. Let the salt, aniseed, and sul phate of iron be mixed together first, and afterwards well incorporated with the cake and pea-meal. We have the authority of eminent chemists for saying that even when solu tions of salt and sulphate of iron are mixed together in the proportions here recom mended they undergo but little change. The products of the change are sulphate of soda and protochloride of iron, the the rapeutic action of which, especially in the quantities in which they are formed, will not materially interfere with the unde-' composed common salt and sulphate of iron. Apart, however from the question of a partial chemical change in the agents, we can speak confidently of the practical utility of the compound in the treatment of rot. The quantity of it to be given to each

sheep daily should be half a pint, in addi tion to an ordinary allowance of corn or cake, and hay-chaff. It may be used with advantage for three or four weeks in suc cession, but should be discontinued occa sionally for a day or two, especially if the animals became affected with diarrhoea. In the further treatment of rot, attention should be given to the expulsion—if pos sible—of the flukes from the biliary ducts —not that we think that any medicinal agents can be depended on for this pur pose. Nevertheless, trial may be made of the oil of turpentine combined with lin seed oil and. nitric of aether in the follow ing proportions :—Oil of turpentine, 2 drachms ; nitric tether, 2 drachms ; lin seed oil, 2oz. This may be administered once a day for three or four succeeding days, at in tervals of about a fortnight; and, although not positively required, it may be as well if the medicated food compound bo sus pended at these times. Beyond the adop tion of these measures, we can see no ad vantage in the medical treatment of this disease.

NEIGHBOR JONES.

I’m thinking, wife, of neighbor Jones, the man with the stalwart arm— He lives in peace and plenty on a forty-acre farm; When men are all around us with hearts and hands a-sore, Who own two hundred acres, ?and still are wanting more.

He has a pretty little farm, a pretty little house j He has a loving wife within, as quiet as a mouse ; His children play around the door, their father’s heart to charm, Looking just as neat and tidy as the tidy little farm.

No weeds are in the cornfield, no thistles in the oats; The horses show good keeping by their fine and glossy coats; The cows within the meadow, resting ’neath the beechen shade, Learn all their gentle manner from a gentle milking maid.

Within the field on Saturday, he leaves no cradled grain To be gathered on the morrow for fear of coming rain ; He lives in joy and gladness, and happy are his days; He keeps the Sabbath holy; his children learn his ways. He never had a lawsuit to take him to the town, For the very simple reason there are no fences down; The bar-room in the village forjhim has not a charm; I can always,find my neighbor'on’his forty acre farm.

His acres are so few that he ploughs them very deep; ’Tis his own hands that turn the sod, ’tis his own hands that reap ; He has a place for everything, and every thing in its place; The snnshine smiles upon his Helds, con tentment on his face. J

May we not learn a lesson, wife, from] pru dent neighbor Jones, And not sigh for what we haven’t got—give vent to sighs and groans ? Thfe rich arn’t always happy, nor free from life’s alarms, But blest be those who live small may be’their|farms.

UTILISING SEWAGE.

London has constructed a sewer 27 [miles long, to convey the sewage from her 4,000,000 population out to sea, where it will be beyond the influence of the tide. This is an annual waste of 8,000,000 dol. worth of the best fertilisers. New York and vicinity washes the sewage of 2,000,000 population into the rivers to be alternately carried by the tide up and down the streams and inlets for twenty-five miles around. Chicago washes her sewage into the lake from which she also draws her water supply. Philadelphia draws her water supply from the river and returns her sewage lower down to pay the draft. St. Louis washes the sewage of a population of 500,000 down the Mississippi, while a very large number of the cities of less size empty their sewage into the rivers or bury it in vaults. All of this is waste, a shameful waste of the health and fertility of the country. The same amount of what is thus thrown away, washed into streams to render them foul and obnoxious to health, must be returned to the soil some way, to keep up the fertility. The immense proportion of the fertility of the soil which is annually removed from farms and sent to be consumed in cities and washed away, will at no distant day, so im poverish the soil as to cause a serious deterioration in value and productiveness. If we go back eastward along the track of westward-extending civilisation, we shall see but barren plains and plague spot, worn out, wasted and desolated, where oace were great empires and dense populations. Only so far as the tendency to sterility is resisted, are the present nations enabled to exist. The soil from the far East along the path of empire westward, is, steadily becoming im poverished, and it is a simple problem to dlaobyet how soda Americans must| re

m ive westward or save the fertilising elements of their soils. Some attempts at utilising sewage have been made in England, and it is stated that a large proportion of the Paris sewage is employed to irrigate the plain of Gennevilliers below the city upon the banks of the Seine, and that the result affords a lesson to all other places, of what may be done. That the sewage of all cities could be drawn to some convenient -locality and there converted iob) fertilisers, is an apparent fact. That from a large city it woultd be a profit-ih'e business, there is no question. Ad street refuse an 1 sewage, should be collected and returned ti the soils aud when systematically undertaken, this disposal of fertilisers will .add both to the health of the city an I the wealth of the. country.

PAMPHILON'S MANURE DIS TRIBUTOR.

Additional interest is given to artificial manure distributors at the present time, from the fact that they are being largely used for ’ gravelling the streets in frosty weather, perform- 7 ing that operation much more effectively and expeditiously than ever could be expected from ,- manual labor The distributor of Messrs Pamphilou and Co., Whittl -sford. which was. ' shown in action as far as possible at Sinithfield- Club Show, is now being tested in this capacity; 'I by the Salford Corporation. A back view of this appliance as modified for its new work, shows - the distinctive feature to b; the absence of cup s and rollers. It is constructed almost entirely of : timber, so that there is no liability to corrosion, ■ and-consists of an upper and a lower box. The upper box is divided into two parts, rhe higher acting as a reservoir for holding the gravel or .. manure, and feeding the lo ver portion as re-; quirod. The lower portion contains the stirrer, . consisting ofja shaft set with pins, and made to ' revolve by spur gear from one of the land wheels. . This shaft is thrown in and out of gear by a lever. clutch, the driver taking his seat on the cover at the front side The bottom of this upper box is fitted with a slide, sat by the bars which are ~ seen projecting, so as to regulate the delivery; ' and every eighth of an inch that this slide is’ withdrawn increases the dressing by one-hundred- ‘ - weight to the acre. The lower or distributing box is suspended from the upper by hanger links, and is made to oscillate laterally by level wheel and pinion, crank and connecting rod, worked off- - the other land wheel, and also thrown in and out of gear by a lever clutch on the right. Flappers are hung loosely at the bottom for,- throwing the stuff right and left. For turnips - or mangolds a box with serrated bottom arid' aperturs is attached for sowing the manure ini. drills. The horizontal lever is for occasionally moving a stirrer, when nitrate of soda or other substance liable to cake together is employed, i When soot is used, the cover serves, with 'some additional boards, to increase the capacity of the hopper. This appliance, which will dis tribute all kinds of artificial manure, carried off' . the only prize at the late Cowbridge Show. The farmyard manure-spreader is made entirely of wrought iron, no oast iron being used on ac count of it# liability to break during fro-it It is attached to a hook in the centre of an ordinary ■ - cart axle; and is fed by a man standing on the. apparatus aud raking the manure in from the cart. One of the land wheels is geared to rollers.

over which passes a web armed with slats and' spikes for delivering the manure, while the other landwhsel drives an agitator, or shaft set

with knives arranged helically, for affording a

regular dressing. A lever-clutch throws the feed-web in and out of gear. It is claimed that, by the use of this machine, which is highly ap proved of by agriculturists, labor is saved, as there is no heaping; time is save!, as the hands: usually employed to spread cm be put to other work; and manure is saved, as it is turned to account in the ground.

Poultry Cholera Disease.—This disease is-, now prevalent. It is a disease of the liver and intestines, a typhoid or intestinal fever,, which ends in gangarene. Ttie fowls sit about, turn yellow about the head, void green or yellow matter and do not eat... There is no cure; the disease is very infec tions, and the best way is to kill every sick fowl as soon as it is discovered. Remove the well birds to a fresh place, that is clean, dry, and airy, and feed them on boiled wheat with a small tablespoonful of fine, dry lime stirred in the mess for each dozen fowls. Wood Ashes.—The value of ashes as a fer tiliser depends principally upon the potash, and phosphoric acid they contain. The per centage of these varies largely, in acids from different woods, varying from 10 per cent, to 24 per cent, for the former, and 4 per cent, to 12 per cent, for the latter. This would give not far from four to five pounds of potash to ordinary mixed unleached ash e s which, reckoned at 4J per cents pound—the present value of potash in the commercial fertilisers—would give the value of a bushel as from 18 to 22J cents. With due allow ance for the phosphoric acid and the lime the latter making up the largest part of the ashes—it may seem that a bushel of un leaohed ashes is worth from 25 to 30 cents at the present time. The National live stock Journal, published at Chicago, has a communication from a well-known American auctioneer of Shorthorns, who reports that although prices had ruled low, “ he had sold more Shorthorns to beginners, and that more buyers had paid in cash for their purchases than he had previously done in any three years; in an experience of twenty-five years." Another favourable symptom of a soumlitrade is reported, in that the hulls fetched on the average within a' ' a few shillings of the average price for the cows. ■This seems to have been about L 23 per head for -3028 cattle of all ages, from calves upwards. He adds, “ Many of .them were very plainly and only fti to bred, “use for crossing purposes^. Docks are very dirty birds in a house and need; to have considerable room. A flock of thirty wilt require a house front 12 x 12 feet, which should be so made that it can bo easily cleaned out,: Nest places ..should be provided on the.ground hidden by a frame around three sides, ;’

A Clydesdale mare which recently gained the prise at Perth, Scotland, has been fosnd to hare 'raise her forelegs ' ■

FARMERS 9 SUPPLEMENT.

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