The diseases and complaints mentioned above are nearly all that afflict our dairy stock; and the list at least includes all the common diseases and their treatment. Some of the diseases and epidemics from which the cattle of Great Britain and other countries suffer are not known at all here, or are of so very rare occurrence as not to have attracted attention; and among these may be named pleuro-pneumonia, typhus fever, cow-pox, and various epidemics which have from time to time decimated the cattle of all Europe. To accidents of various kinds, to wounds, trouble with the eyes, and to lameness from other causes than those named, they are, indeed, more or less subject; but no work could anticipate or cover the treatment best in every case, and much must be left to the judgment of the owner.
I have tried to make this chapter, which I consider one of the most important of any to the dairy farmer, of practical value to every one who owns or has the care of a cow. But, lest a want of familiarity with some of the medicines recommended for particular diseases, or the fear of the expense of procuring and keeping them on hand, should deter some one from providing himself with a good medicine-chest, I wish to remind the reader that no small portion of them are always to be found in every well-regulated household, and that the others are obtained at so little expense that no one need be without them for a single day.
Let us see, for instance, how many of them are at hand. But few families are destitute of a supply of ginger, camphor, red pepper, lard, molasses, cinnamon, peppermint, starch, turpentine, tallow, bees-wax, burdock, and caraway-seed. The farmer’s wife or daughter will generally have a supply of ammonia or hartshorn.
Now, I wish to suggest to the farmer or dairyman who happens to live at a distance from the apothecary to provide himself with a convenient little medicine-chest, and put into it say four times the quantities of the various medicines which are mentioned in the preceding pages, carefully bottled and labelled for use. To aid in this simple plan, which might be the means of saving an animal worth twenty times its cost, I have obtained, from a wholesale druggist, about the average cost of the following quantities and kinds of medicines, which include all, or nearly all, that would be likely to be needed: Five pounds of Epsom salts, .18; one pint of castor-oil, .25; one pint of sweet spirits of nitre, .19; one pound of powdered nitrate of potash, .20; one pound carbonate of ammonia, .23; one half-pound sal ammoniac, .08; one pint of tincture of red pepper (hot drops), .31; one ounce of hydriodate of potash, .30; one pound chloride of lime, .10; one pound sulphate of iron, .10; 2 pounds powdered sulphur, .16; one pint of tincture of ginger, 37; one quart of essence of anise-seed, .50; one half-pound sulphuric ether, .20; one half-pound powdered sassafras-bark, .20; one quarter-pound magnesia, .06; one quarter-pound rhubarb, 30 (the common will answer instead of prepared); one ounce powdered opium, .43; One quarter-pound catechu, .06; one ounce Dover’s powders, .25; 2 ounces gum kino, .05; one half-pound mercurial ointment, .371⁄2; and one pound aloes, .25. Then keep in the chest a good probang, which is a flexible tube made for the purpose, and is much safer and better for introducing into the throat or gullet of an animal than a common whip-stick, which some use. This costs about $3.50, and can be procured at almost any veterinary surgeon’s. This whole chest and contents will cost less than ten dollars.
Let the farmer also become familiar with the structure and anatomy of his animals. It will open a wide field of useful and interesting investigation.
CHAPTER XI.
THE DAIRY HUSBANDRY OF HOLLAND.
This chapter I translate from an admirable little work in German, “Die Holländische Rindviehzucht und Milchwirthschaft im Königreich Holland,” by Ellerbrock, a distinguished veterinary surgeon, professor of cattle pathology and cattle-breeding in the Agricultural Institute at Zeyst, in Holland.
Milking and Treatment of Milk.
—The cows are turned to pasture early in spring, and stay there day and night throughout the pasture-season. They are milked daily in a particular part of the lot called the milk-yard. This is kept in some instances permanently in the same place; in others, it is changed about at pleasure. A shady part of the pasture is generally selected, and it is commonly enclosed with a board fence. The cows are driven into this yard to be milked, when not already there at the usual time. The milking is done by male and female domestics, who carry their pails, cans, and dishes, hung on a kind of wooden yoke, [Fig. 84], neatly cut out, painted, and set with copper nails. This is swung over the shoulders, or else the dairy utensils are carried on donkeys, ponies, or hand-carts; or, where there is water communication, in boats, twice a day, to the yard.