Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1879-10-08
Farm. Garden and Household.
HOW HORSES BECOME BLIND


One of the worst eye traps known is
the abominable hay rack, where the
horse has to reach up and pull the hay
down. filling bis name, foretop, and
worst of all, his eyes with hay seed,
chaff or whatever may be mixed with
the provender. These traps are met
with everywhere throughout the land
These throw the horse in the most
unnatural position for feeding, as the
natural position is to reach down and
pull up, not to reach up and pull
down, as the hay racks make them do.
reaching up to eat it exposes the
foretop, face and eyes to seed, chan
and dirt which, getting on the head
once, is liable to get into the eyes at
any time. We will speak now OF the
abuse that horsemen resort to In con-
trolling o horse. The worst of all is
in striking him over the head with
leather strap, club, whip or fist
Shame on man that would dare to
club over the head the noblest of crea-
ton next to man! But am sorry to
say we find great many so-called
horsemen that take delight in sitting
on their wagon seat and trying to see
how close they can send the point OF a
crscker to the horses ear, or strike
some particular spot on the back OF the
head, neck or shoulders. But my
word for it, man who will practice
this, comes to grief sooner or later
Instinct tells the horse to be careful
of his head, and especially of his eyes,
for when they are gone that ends his
seeing, as they can never be restored
or new ones put in, as we all know.
Therefore, never strike horse about
the head. The number OF horses
eyes hurt by slipping the collar over
the head would surprise us all If known.
A horses head, with a good eye set
ting out boldly on square face, is
hard thing to slip a stiff collar over
without rubbing and bruising the eye
Next we have the stable to contend
with, and it produces more weak eyes
than any other one thing we know Of
The gasses arising from the body are
ruinous to the eye. Let q man stand
over pile of warm decomposing ma
nure and see how quickly it affects the
eyes. But he never thinks about the
horse in his closely confined stall with
no ventilation either above or below to
carry away this poison. Set your sta
bles up from the ground, give ventila-
ton underneath so as to contine this
gas and compel it to rise through the
cracks in the floor. Also put good
ventilation high above the horses
heads to cause current of air to carry
off this poison as it generates. Al
ways give the horse plenty of light,
but not through small opening
Never whitewash a stall, as white IS
very bad on the eyes. Take a sheet
ofwhite paper and hold it before your
eyes q short time and see its effects;
but you can turn your head and look
away from it while the horse cannot
as be is tied up with white sheet all
around him. Never whitewash
stall, but always use blue, as it will
not hurt the eyes.
PURE cIsTERN WATER.
A correspondent of the Ohao
Farmer says: "Pure water for do
mestic use is of great Importance. In
most wells the water is more or less
impregnated with lime, or other min
eral or earthly substance, SO that it is
not SO pure as rain water. Wells are
often so deep that it is hard drawing
the water. For family use l would
recommend cistern. Most places
where well can be dug, and where
it is not 80 sandy as to cave, cistern
can be plastered with cement without
walling with brick or stone. When 1
built my house, four years ago, dug
nv cistern back of the house before l
built the summer kitchen, so as to
have it in the kitchen. The flterer
is small cistern, one or two feet from
the other cistern, with tile for
spout to connect them. The end of
this pipe in the filterer is enclosed by
small circular brick wall, or double
wall of two inches each, with space
of two inches between, WHICH is filled
with pulverized charcoal. The sur
face of this filtering wall is scarcely
square yard, and that part of the roof
discharging into the cistern is twenty
four feet by forty. Yet it is only the
most violent thundershower that gives
more than enough water to pass
readily through the flterer. The
main cistern is six feet in diameter and
twenty-four feet deep. This gives us
cool water all summer-as cool as well
water. We draw with chain pump,
which keeps the air and water circu-
lated, so that it is pure. l prefer to
have the filterer outside the main cis-
tern, and being shallow, it is easily
cleaned. Both cisterns are covered
with brick ARCH In the cistern of
six feet in diameter the arch is started
with groove cut in the earth for the
bottom of the arch. The earth holds
it sufficiently from where the cistern
is plastered. The arch rises three feet,
leaving three feet of earth over it."
PLOUGHING ORCHARDS.
A correspondent of the Rural World
describes at length his mode of plough
ing orchards, so as to 60 near the trees
without disturbing them. His double
or long whifletree is thirty-four inches
in length. Instead of a hole in the
centre, he bores hole on each side OF
the centre and six inches from it, max
ing these holes foot apart, and each
ten inches from the end When he
wishes to throw the furrow to the
right next the line of trees, he uses
the right hole, with block of wood
two and q half or three inches thick
secured on the left side of the plough
beam. But when ploughing to the
left, or away from the trees, he re
verses the hole and the block. In this
way the horse can walk closely to the
trees without injury to them A hay
rope tide at the end of the long whiffle
tree prevents scraping the bark.