San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1878-10-05
FARM TOPICS.

EpUcArINa YOUNG HoRsEs.-Rev
". H. Murray gives, in the Golden Rule,
The following directions for educating OF
as n used to be called breaking in "
~ouno horses: "If you have colt to
zach. and have the habit of speaking
sharply and loudly, correct yourself 81
!. at once. Colts are timid, high-spirit-
I'D things, if they are worth any thing ;
and he who manages them should be OF
Suiet habits, and have a low, pleasant
tSCned voice. The trainer that yells
stands in the same category as the driver
IN the public race who screams and
wboops like Comanche Indian when
coming down the home-stretch; the one
sbould be banished the track, and the
other turned out of the gentleman's sta
Has. Our method of educating colt to
the harness and wagon is to educate him
singly, by himself; and this education
should begin very early. When the colt
4 twelve or fourteen months old begin
IN nut the harness on him. In q few
weeks he is accustomed to it and ready
for the shafts, But, in doing this, do
not be in hurry. Give the youngster
time to get thoroughly acquainted with
every strap and buckle, as it were. Let
him see every thing and smell every
thing. The senses Of sight, smell, and
touch are tho great avenues of knowl-
edge to the horse, especially The last two.
The ear and eye give the alarm. These
two organs stand, as it were, On picket
for the animals safety. But if your
horse is frightened at any thing, let him
smell and touch it, and he will. fear no
longer. Hyour colt is afraid of the har-
ness as it comes rustling out of the har-
ness-room, let him touch it with his nose,
and smell of it q few times, and he will
soon understand that it will not hurt
him. If he is inclined to kick or jump
il the breeching- band or any strap hits
his hams or legs, by gently rubbing them
against the sensitive places he will soor
become indifferent to them. By the
time the colt Is two years of age, or ever
less, he should be educated to 60 be-
tween the shafts, either forward or back
ward, and be thoroughly familiar with
the harness and vehicle and ordinary
road.service.
RENovATING OLD PASTURES.-The
WORKOUT pastures which abound in
some of the older and especially the
Southern States, have previously been
exhausted by severe cropping with
grain, tobacco or cotton. The land is
cropped until it will no longer pay for
cultivation, then turned to grass, and
the failure of that marks the smallest
possible degree of fertility. Bushes,
briars and hedge take the place of val
liable grasses, until their decay furnishes
material for revival of fertility. Such
land is however richer in plant food than
is generally supposed. Cropping rare
ly exhausts more than one or two ele-
ments, and as soon as these give out the
land ceases to produce and arrests the
process. Nine times out of ten phos-
phate of lime is the lacking ingredient.
With this, good crops may be produced,
and if suitable rotation, including
clover, is adopted, fertility will be in
definitely maintained. 1t is only thus
that we can account for the wonderful
results of improved farming on some of
the so-called "worn out ~ lands of the
Southern States. If the soil were really
deficient in plant food, it could not be
so easily restored to fertility. Undoubt-
! eddy after cropping ceases, the decom-
position of plant food continues, so that
after few years of "resting," fields
once fertile may again be brought I'M
der cultivation for one or two crops.
In the old settled parts Of the South this
process has usually been repeated once
or twice before the land has been given
over to scrubby trees and bushes. To
bring such land up requires greater
outlay than where only the first or orr
ginal fertility has been exhausted.
Many Northern pastures are gradually
falling because milk, cheese and wool,
all rich in phosphates, have been sold
from the farm. There is difference in
the manure from milch-cow and that
from fattening cow. The fattening
animal takes mainly the carbon and al
buminoids needed to form fat and lean
meat. A COW giving milk, or grow
ing young animal, abstracts from the
food the phosphates to form milk and
bone, and the result is a deficiency OF
this element in the manure. Selling
butter does not have this effect if the
outtermilk is fed on the farm and the
manure saved. Excepting the oil, the
outtermilk contains the strengthening
and fesh-forming elements of whole
milk but the whey from curd is of lit
ue value for feed, neither doe, 1t make
valuable manure. The discovery OF
phosphate rock in the South is OF I'M
mense Importance to its agricultural fu-
Iure. VI course its first use will be on
cotton or other cultivated crops; but
WIN improved farming, more attention
VIII be given to renOvating old and
WORKOUT pastures, and when this is at
Ssmpted, phosphate in some form will