184 SHEEP DISEASES: 



them and consequently no tires of wheels or horse-shoes to be 

 worn away ; neither is there any old iron lying about to rust. 



I do not wish it to be concluded from what I have just said 

 that I am an advocate for heavy manuring — far from it. I 

 could relate dozens of instances of the injurious effects of such 

 a system but will only quote one or two. I have already 

 directed attention to the effects of over-manuring swedes and 

 turnips, and, as a striking illustration of my argument, I may 

 point out that the application of large quantities of nitrate of 

 soda to pasture land is a frequent cause of diabetes and weed 

 in horses feeding on the grass or clover grown thereon, even 

 when these are made into hay ; and in my own practice I have 

 frequently told my clients that their horses were fed on such 

 grass or hay (though I knew nothing at the time of the district 

 from which it had been brought) and subsequent inquiry has 

 proved the correctness of my conclusions. 



Neither animals nor vegetables can be said to be in a really 

 healthy state if they are over-forced. Wheat grown on a dung- 

 hill frequently fails to attain maturity. Turnips grown with 

 excess of stimulants, especially nitrates, decay or decompose 

 early. Near Edinburgh lately, tvirnips grown with manure 

 were sold at £14, those with nitrates at £8 per acre, the dairy- 

 men averring that the latter do not keep. Mutton grown on 

 ling and heather is sweeter and more satisfying than is the 

 mutton of trough or manger-fed sheep, 



I am quite aware that I may be told — and I have been so 

 told — that I am labouring under a mistake ; that plants will 

 not take up excessive quantities of salts. If this were so, why 

 do we see diabetes and weed when nitrate of soda is used in 

 excess ? and how is it that when sheep and cattle are fed on 

 turnips and grass grown with a liberal supply of superphosphates 

 or even of lime, the quantity of lime salts passed off by the 

 urine is so great that concretions are formed in the bladder of 

 the sheep which block up the worm-like appendage at the end 

 of the penis and, if not removed, cause death by retention of 

 urine ? In bullocks, the lime salts form concretions round the 

 hairs at the end of the sheath which often imprison the urine 

 and cause death by mortification of the sheath and surrounding 

 tissues, or by blood-poisoning. Professor Johnstone analysed 

 turnips grown with guano and farm-yard manure respectively, 

 and found that the ash of the former contained lOSO per cent, 

 of phosphoric acid, as against 7'73 per cent, in that of the latter. 

 Now, as excess of manure is injurious so its judicious appli- 

 cation may be highly beneficial. Thus I have known diseases, 

 such as " red-water " " braxy " and " anthrax " entirely disappear 

 from pastures in which they had become, as it were, indigenous, 

 by the application of lime, phosphates, or salt. 



