St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-05-12
CATTLE DEHORNING CRAZE
Some Of the Arguments Adduced in
Favor of the System.
IS ALLEGED TO BE CRUEL.
Still an Experiment, But Regarded
Favorably by Those Who Have
Had Experience.
Special to the Globe.

Special to the Globe.
SIOUX FALLS, May 11.-There is just
now before the farmers and practical
stock men of Dakota very practical
and interesting question as to the wis
dom OF the practice of dehorning. The
originator of this scheme is Mr.. H. H.
Haaf, of Illinois, who argues that it is
useful in that deh0rned cattle may be
more easily crowded together in an in
closure, because the danger from
vicious cattle is taken away and because
the horns use up good share of the
food, which might otherwise be applied
towards making beef and butter. These
advantages seemed numerous and i'm
portant enough to the farmers of Da-
kota, and large numbers of them have
taken Mr.. Haaf'S advice. 1t is esti-
mated that not less than 200 herds have
been dehorned in this county alone,
although the matter is but yet only
an experiment, and that, too, in
its very first stages. The fever is spread
ing into other counties, which are Just
at this season dehorning very largely.
There are, however, great many far
merS of the conservative classes who
are not yet willing to undertake the
process. They are asking the question
very earnestly and pertinently, ''Does
DEHORNING PAY?"
They say to themselves, During the
last year only 200 people were killed by
horn thrusts in the United States. Out
of the 100000 cattle there are only
200 dumb murdererS. AS matter of
ethics, is it right to cOuse great pain to
these dumb animals because one out of
over quarter of a million use them on
human beings? and further, is it not
likely that the cutting away of the horns
SO close to the base of the brain-is
liable to impair the health of the ami
mal?' The arguments which the
opponents of dehorning bring
against the practice are very seri,
Gus ones. They claim that the
wounds caused by the work
of the dehorner will not heal up. That
it leaves the hollow chambers in the
skull open almost to the brain; that the
nervous system of the animal is thereby
deranged; that the fat cattle become
less able to endure changes of tempera-
ture: that milk cattle lose that nervous
energy which all practical dairymen
recognize as the one essential of good
butter yielderS; that the whold herd
Is DEMORALIZED.
They tell us that the dehOrning sewers
system of nerves which are as SenSi-
tive as are those of child. They insist
that it is too early yet for the dehorner
to blow his horn about results, mas
much as the experiment is but yet in its
infancy, and bad results, which are sure
to follow in time, have not yet shown
themselves.
The controversy between these two
schools of cattle men, though it has so
far been conducted in sub rosa man
ner, is just about now growing very ami
mated in Dakota. 1t calls to mind the
controversy INDUCED in few years ago
by those who advocated and those who
opposed vivisection. Although he may
be right, until the dehorner is able to
show test which has stood some time
that his system is all he claims for it,
the conservative cattle man will, and
should, make haste slowly.