Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1900-07-19
Habits of the C.oaf.

When we go back a couple of thou
sand years ago or even still farther and
read In the old books of what the an
clients knew of things in general, we
must well believe that we have not
made the best use of our advantages,
says Henry Stewart in The Sheep
Breeder. For in many things we may
learn much from these old books in
which the ancient poet farmers and
shepherds and cattlemen recorded in
the most elegant language their ideas
on subjects appertaining to their prac-
teal business. Indeed the young men
now at school or college should by no
means slight these classical studies
which when the old men of the present
were mere boys were thought to be in
dispensable to the cultivation of the
mind and the habit of study and ac-
QUESTION of useful knowledge. And as
just now the public mind is becoming
excited in regard to goats let US go to
the sweet fount Of knowledge of these
animals which sprang from the grace
full mind of the first of the old Roman
poets, Virgil, himself an accomplished
farmer and shepherd And we shall
find that what this great man did not
know of sheep and goats and cattle and
horses and the breeding of them and of
fields and crops as we'll as of human
nature is hardly worth the telling now
And in the third book of his Georges
or songs of the farm, field and herds and
b.. IL ~.
and goats. And when he gets through
with the herds he writes. "This is
enough for herds. Let us turn to an
other part of our care which exceeds
this, which is the care of sheep and
goats. Expect, o hardy husbandman,
praise from this Beginning, l com
mand that the sheep be fed in warm
stables until the leafy summer returns,
and spread the hard ground with straw
and bundles of fern lest the cold may
injure the gentle flock and cause. scab
and filthy sores Also | command to
supply leafy arbutus (small shrubby
branchesl to the goats, TO lead them to
the clear streams and build their stable
safe from the winds. For these are to
be guarded with no lighter care than
the sheep, nor will their use and profit
be less"
Difficulties of Horse Breeding.
Horse breeding in all parts of India
has its difficulties, says the London
Live Stock Journal LatterIy the inn
perial government has been trying to
encourage pony breeding in the Mani
pur state, but the officers who visited
the country reported that there We're
extremely few decent stations to be
seen. 1t has since been ascertained
by some sympathetic traveller VITO
could induce the Manipuris to discuss
matters with him that the people do
not understand that the methods of
the British government differ from
those of their own chiefs who formerly
ruled them. The rajah, it seems, used
to insist upon buying any foal he might
fancy at his own price, and as he
bought through a chief who bought
through some understIapper it may be
easily conceived that the price receiv-
I'd by the owner of the foal was small
when it reached him. Under these cir
cumstances the owners Of good stall
lions keep them carefully hidden away
in the jungle in short. Manipur horse
breeding had been Il regular hole and
corner business, which knowledge Of
British methods viii eventually change
for the better.