St. Paul daily globe., 1888-06-11
Interesting and Varied Topics
Presented at the Insti-
tute at Moorhead.
The Work Of the Three DayS
Reported Especially for
the Globe.
What Following in the Rut Of
the Fathers Means in the
Northwest.
The ChintZ Bug Said to Sur
vive the Prolonged Rains
and the Cold.

Reported for the Globe.
MOoRHEAD. May 2S.--The institute
was organized by the election of Prof.
0. G. Gregg as chairman. Owing to the
unfavorable weather the attendance
was not as large as it was hoped it
would be, but of the goodly number of
representative farmers of Clay and adj
joining counties who were present, they
manifested throughout all the sessions
a deep interest in the subjects dis
cuSSed.
The evening sessions were largely at
tended by townspeople, some of whom
contributed largely to the pleasure of
those present by furnishing some ex-
cellent music, both vocal and instru-
mental. Taken as whole, the Farm
ers' institute was grand success, and
of which we believe and expect good
results will follow.
CATTLE IMPROVEMENT.
Supt. o. 9. Gregg opened the session
by giving an interesting talk Oh the
improvement of our cattle.
Improvement in cattle may be divided
into three parts:
First-By supplying food, water and
shelter we preserve loss from hunger,
thirst and extreme heat and cold.
Second-After so preserving the forces
of the animal, the form is changed by
feeding and breeding so that the forces
so preserved are utilized to the best ad-
vantage, either in making beef OF milk.
Nature makes these forms. They are
the same in all breeds. They are called
the ''beef form' and the dairy FORM"
Any breed of cattle that is not estab-
lished upon this higher law of form is
valueleSS. Breeds are made by men,
and may be of little or no value, but a
beef form is of value to the beef maker
and the dairy form is of great value to
he dairyman.
Third-Continuou breeding in dairy
and beef lines finally gives a prepotency
that enables the animal TO transmit its
progeny. The value of full-blOoded
is, first its form and second to transmit
the form.
Mr.. Gregg holds that grades are more
desirable than thoroughbreds, both for
feeding and milking. Cows shall be
built for business. A good cow for the
dairy cannot be mistaken. The upper
part should be too poor for beef. The
lower part of the body should be full
and heavy. Animals that make good
beef will not make good mixers, Other
signs mentioned as making good cows
for the dairy are: A large mouth and
full eyes, which indicates the nervous
system; also great breadth between the
eyes, and broad, heavy, full brain indi-
cate big nervous system and a good
mixer; thinness of horns and top of
shoulders; firmness of legs and tail;
milk veins large and outside abdominal
wall; udder almost hairless. He also
advises farmers to breed from good
sires, giving good care to progeny,
under no circumstances crossing the
''dairy form" with the 'beef form," for
it will Show>in progeny and lessen the
supply of milk. Breeds have dissimi-
larities in blood that antagoniZe each
other and so destroy prepotency. We
should choose what we want and then
breed for it in line. Failure to do SO
will bring trouble.
THE HORSE AND HIS LAMENESS.
DR.. William Dickson, of Litchfield,
Horse and His Various Diseases and
How to Cure Them if Curable." He
said: Ninety per cent of all lameness
occurs in the foot. Itinerapt horse
doctors usually have some favofite and
oftentimes unlikely locality to which
they ascribe all lameness. Why it
should be so, l don't know,
but. the most common is the
shoulder. Now that is the last
place l look for lameness, unless signs
are peculiarly diagnostic. Acute shoul-
der lameness is easily told from any
other-the horse invariably advances
his leg semi-circularly, or in stiff,
sidelong manner, as man does his
wooden leg.
The best means of locating the
trouble is the sense of touch, which can
detect any unnatural heat.
In this climate. where both atmos-
phere and soil are, for large proper
ton of the year, so very dry, horses
suffer more from the want of the neceS-
Sary moisture to their feet than from
any other single cause. Board floors
and bad Shoeing exc out what the
climate leaves undone. Between them
bad feet are lamentably common.
Never have the frog, sOles or bars of
the foot cut away on any pretense
whatever, and when your horses can
get along without shoes, for their own
sakeS let them go barefoot. / have
never yet been able to get blacksmith
following out the sole until it springs
to the pressure of the thumb, as almost
all incompetent artisans will do. l
guess the reason is that they cut most
where it's easiest to cut.
If you have your horses shod, never
let the shoe remain on longer than a
month. 1t contracts the feet and ruins
them.
will give you few pointers in re-
gard to foot founder, or ''lamlnitis,"
and navicular disease. The abominable
practice of cutting out the sole and par
ing it from an approved (?) principle
have much to answer for in causing the
latter, and the equally barbarous pro-
too small, and then chopping off
the foot to fit it, is main cause
of very common form of the former.
Ringbone and Si6ebone are very differ
ent things, both in the structures they
involve and the lameness they cause.
The former are the results of disease of
the bcny structure, the latter of the
fibrc-elastic cartilages, whose office it is
fo prevent undue expansion of the feet
at the beds; they act somewhat like the
elastic sides OF a congress shoe. Ring
bones are sometimes cured: that is to
say, the lameness disappears for time.
l would much prefer. however, to have
the ringbone or SPAWN on another mans
horse. Quacks admit their inability to
cure them. but they can kill them. This
is, as rule, absolute nonsense. Fll
show you what
A SPAWN Is.
Here is the true hook JOINT: here are
the cuneiform or cushion shaped bones,
which being lowermost, take most of
the jar caused by conclusion; here is
''the bunch," against which all or
the crank's weapons are leveled-
loaded to the muZzle with liniments
OF every description. Well, suppose
they have killed or cured, or whatever
they choose to call their treatment, the
bunch. We will suppose it removed al
oh i-, 4