THE ART OF SHEEP RAISING 



FOR 



WOOL, MUTTON, AND MONET 



T * 



The present paper will treat of the diseases of sheep and their reme- 

 dies; and herein, first, of 



SCAB. 



I will not affirm, as of my own knowledge, that scab is caused by an 

 insect, but going on the principle that a man will become very old be- 

 fore he learns everything by personal experiment, I accept the theory 

 advanced by such writers as Walz of Germany, Youatt of England, and 

 our own countryman, Dr. .Randall — men who have made a lifelong study 

 of sheep and their diseases, and than whom I can imagine none better to 

 quote from. Walz says: "If one or more female acari are placed on 

 the wool of a sound sheep, they quickly travel to the root of it, and 

 bury themselves in the skin, the place at which they penetrated being 

 scarcely visible, or only distinguished by a minute red point. On the 

 tenth or twelfth day a little swelling may be detected by the finger, and 

 the skin changes its color and has a greenish blue tint. The pustule i's 

 now rapidly formed, and about the sixteenth day breaks, and the mothers 

 again appear with their little ones attached to their feet. These little 

 ones immediately set to work and penetrate the neighboring skin, and 

 bury themselves beneath it, and find their proper nourishment, and 

 grow and propagate until the poor animal has myriads of them." This 

 female acarus, it is stated, brings forth from eight to fifteen at a hatch- 



ing. 



I have detected on scabby sheep a parasite which may be examined 

 by a common magnifying glass, and which I suppose to be the acarus 

 that causes the scab with us, though it is quite different in structure 

 (although of about the same size) from the species described and figured 

 by the above named writers. The acarus of Walz is figured as a sac of 

 irregular outline, having the four corners drawn out to form four pairs 



■■ For the commencement of this article, see page 449. 



