THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



113 



Dr. VoKLCKER said, this question was a most important' 

 one, which it would bo mnst desirable to solve. About 

 four years ago, he paid some attention to what was called 

 "clover-sickness ;" and, like most beginners, iu two months 

 he fancied he knew something about the matter, and threw 

 out some suggestions, with a view to remedy the evil. 

 Having, however, followed up the ([uestion in various ope- 

 rations, and in the laboratory, and after some long corre- 

 spondence, he had come to the conclusion that, upon the 

 subject of clovet-sickncss, he knew as much or as little as 

 the man in the moon. 



Mr. Davies asked if the fermentation of ordinary ma- 

 nure would reuder chipped bones sufficiently soluble to be 

 of use to the crop ? 



Dr. VoELCKER thought it would be quite sufficient ; 

 and, after one turning, the bone-dust would disappear. It 

 would, in his opinion, be a very great advantage to use 

 bone-dust in that waj*. 



Mr. Payne inquired if the Professor recommended long 

 manure to be ploughed in, or used as a top-dressing ? 



Dr. VoELCKER said in vcr}' stiff land it dvould be better 

 to plough it in, as in that way they obtained the full ad- 

 vantage of the manure. 



The Chairman, in the course of some observations^ 

 asked if the plan recommended for keeping up the wheat 

 was by stiffening the straw ? If so, superphosphate would 

 be much more likely to do that than ammonia. 



The Professor said he knew, in some instances, that 

 superphosphate stilTcncd the soil ; but that was a different 

 thing from recommendmg it for the purpose of stiffening 

 the corn. Ammoniacal manures certainly had a tendency 

 to make corn go down, and should, therefore, be used very 

 carefully. 



Mr. George Davies then moved, and Mr. George 

 Watton seconded, a vote of thanks to the lecturer, which 

 was cordially carried and acknowledged. 



A similar compliment was, on the motion of Mr. Nevett 

 (Yoreton) accorded to the Chairman, in acknowledging 

 which, 



Mr. Meire expressed liis regret that there was not in 

 the county town a club where farmers could meet and dis- 

 cuss subjects connected with the improvement of the land, 

 and other subjects of the greatest importance to the farmer. 

 The information they had received that day was proof of 

 how much could be gained in this way. 



The meeting then separated. 



REPORT ON THE CATTLE PLAGUE, STEPPE MURRAIN, OR RINDERPEST. 



By James Beart Simonds, 

 professor of cattle pathology in the royal veterinary college, london. 



Epizootic diseases, and particularly those that have 

 prevailed among cattle and sheep, have in all ages ex- 

 cited much attention, and taxed the pen of the faithful 

 historian, as well as the cultivator of the science of 

 medicine, to record their successive outbreaks and de- 

 vastating effects. It is not, however, our intention in 

 this report to follow in a succinct manner the account 

 which has been given of these diseases, extending, as it 

 does, from the period of the infliction of "a grievous 

 murrian " of "boils and bliins " on the cattle of 

 Egypt, as a Divine punishment to the obdurate Pharaoh 

 for resisting the command to let the Children of Israel 

 go, down to our own times ; but to record the result of 

 our investigations into the nature and consequences of 

 the disease which recently seemed to threaten to invade 

 our shores. Whether " the murrain " that fell upon 

 the cattle of the Egyptians has been permitted in an 

 altered or mitigated form to remain as a scourge to suc- 

 ceeding nations is a problem which cannot, we opine, be 

 satisfactorily sulved by any supposed resemblance which 

 our present cattle plagues may bear to the one described 

 by the sacred historian. This fearful and miraculous 

 visitation must be regarded as the chief of these scourges, 

 however destructive they may since have been. 



In the times of the ancient Greeks and Romans the 

 outbreaks of these diseases were not unfrcauent, and 

 numerous records of them are left by Homer, Plutarch, 

 Virgil, and others. Columella, at about the commence- 

 ment of the Christian era, speaks of them as contagious 

 maladies ; and Vegetius, in the fourth century, treats 

 largely of their contagi'ius properties, and recommends 

 that the diseased animals should, " with all diligence 

 and care, be separated from the herd, and put apart by 

 themselves." Fracastorius and Wcierus also describe 



the sad effects of one of these visitations in 810, when it 

 is said that the greater part of the cattle perished through- 

 out the Emperor Charlemagne's dominions. 



The first recorded instance, however, which we find 

 of the cattle in England being affected by one of this 

 class of maladies is in 1713-14, at which period an 

 epizootic, that for a few years previously had prevailed 

 in several continental states, suddenly broke out here, 

 and swept off many of our cattle. No account suffi- 

 ciently explicit upon the nature and progress of the dis- 

 ease has been handed down to us, so that it is difficult 

 to speak with certainty of its true characters, and much 

 more either of its duration or the amount of loss which 

 the country sustained. It appears, however, that the 

 malady possessed many of the features of Eczema 

 epizooticd, now common among us, and it may possibly 

 have been identical with this disease. The infection 

 seems to have been communicated by the saliva, as it is 

 said that " when this is dropped on the grass, and 

 sound animals are immediately placed on the same pas- 

 ture, they contract the disorder ; and in some bullocks 

 the tongue was inflamed and covered with many red 

 blisters." 



This malady was succeeded in 1744 by one of far 

 greater importance, because attended with a far greater 

 fatality. The disease in question early attracted the 

 attention of the Government, who promptly adopted 

 vigorous means of arresting its progress. It is asserted 

 that the malady first appeared in the neighbourhood of 

 London, whence it extended over the length and breadth 

 of the land, destroying hundreds of thousands of cattle, 

 and continuing its devastating effects with almost un- 

 mitigited severity down to 1754-5. Its introduction 

 here has been differently accounted for ; but it is pretty 



