THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



477 



Much may be done by carefully watching its rise and 

 progress during the summer months. Whether the 

 animalculse supposed to produca the evil be really 

 viviparous or oviparous is a question which can only be 

 cleared up and settled by experiments hereafter, to be 

 conducted by persons skilled in that department of 

 science, and especially by those possessing a comprehen- 

 sive knowledge of entomology. Gentlemen, I beg most 

 sincerely to thank you for the kind and patient attention 

 with which you have done me the favour to listen to my 

 long and tedious, though, I hope, not altogether un - 

 interesting address. Jly own research has hitherto, I 

 am bound to confess, proved unsuccessful. May that of 

 others succeed better. May their labours receive a 

 brighter reward, and their inquiries be unobstructed by 

 any of those impediments over which we have no control, 

 and that have so far baffled the combined efforts of 

 modern investigation. 



Mr. J. W. Paull (Ilminster, Somersetshire) said, as a 

 flockmaster, he felt deeply interested in this subject, hav- 

 ing suffered very considerably from the malady referred to 

 by Mr. Marshall, on his farm in the West of England. 

 Mr. Marshall had told them that he finished weaning his 

 ewes as late as July. In the West of England they got 

 the greater part of their lambs not later than January, 

 and they were all off the dams by April. They were, 

 therefore, obliged to have recourse, to a considerable 

 extent, to artificial means of feeding ; they were obliged 

 to put their lambs on the best food they could command, 

 for the purpose of supporting them during the cold 

 backward springs. He had, as he had already intimated, 

 been most unfortunate as regarded his lambs. They 

 were seized with a cough, accompanied with a great dis- 

 charge from the mouth ; and when they were dissected 

 the pipes of the lungs were found to be full of small 

 worms. How the worms got there he had never been 

 able to find out. The only means of providing against 

 the evil, that he had discovered, was not to allow the 

 lambs to go upon old pastures. In a backward spring 

 they were obliged to resort to young grasses and tares. 

 His own county appeared to be much more forward than 

 Lincolnshire. The only preventive to the disease, which 

 he had been able to find out, was to change them on 

 pastures which had been fed by beasts the previous year. 

 (Hear, hear). That had sometimes produced a consi- 

 derable effect. Still he had been a great sufferer from 

 this malady, and he had come to London almost on 

 purpose to hear whether Mr. Marshall could suggest 

 any effectual remedy. 



Capt. Davy (South Molton) had suffered very much 

 from the malady in question, which in his part of the 

 country was called the scour. He had lost an immense 

 per-centage of his lambs. They were dropped chiefly 

 in January and February, and weaned before the end of 

 May. By the end of June numbers of them were taken 

 with a scouring, and a discharge from the nose, and 

 they were soon dead. The best preventive was to 

 remove the lambs to what was termed in Devonshire 

 the after-grass, that was, the grass which came after 

 mowing. He believed one of the causes of this disease 

 was that many persons breed their animals of too 



delicate constitutions, with too small necks and legs of 

 muttons. If our sheep were of more hardy constitutions 

 they would not suffer so much. As long as lambs lived 

 on their mother's milk (nature's best food, and most 

 easily assimilated by young animals) they did very well ; 

 but when they had to shift for themselves, their delicate 

 systems were unable to digest their food and absorb its 

 ingredients. A disordered stomach was the first result ; 

 disease followed, and ultimately death. 



Mr. Paull agreed with Captain Davy that it was the 

 after-grass, as well as the change of feeding, that they 

 must look to for relief. 



Mr. O. Wallis (Overstone Grange, Northampton- 

 shire), said in this case they ought to be careful lest they 

 should confound cause and effect. He believed that the 

 worms which had been spoken of as generated in the lambs 

 were the result of previous feeding (Hear, hear). The 

 case resembled that of the discovery of flukes in the 

 livers of rotten sheep. He was inclined to attribute the 

 evil in a great decree to the over-stocking which seemed 

 to prevail in certain districts. The result of this was 

 that the sheep had to search so near the soil for their 

 food that they took up something that was pernicious 

 to the system ; disease was generated, a. parasite was 

 formed, and that parasite was probably the worm which 

 had been described by Mr. Marshall in his able paper. 

 When he first commenced farming he had only an arable 

 farm ; and having no means of changing the food of his 

 stock, he used to lose a very large proportion. It was 

 not at all uncommon for him then to lose a hundred 

 sheep a year on a farm of 400 acres. Under these cir- 

 cumstances he felt that he must either relinquish the 

 breeding of sheep or get some grazing land. He 

 adopted the latter plan. In feeding his sheep he changed 

 from seeds to pasture, and back again from pasture to 

 seeds ; and the consequence was that where he formerly 

 lost a hundred sheep he now lost about ten. He con- 

 sidered it essential that there should be a change of 

 pastures, especially wi'h regard to sheep. He also held 

 it to be very important not to let sheep graze very closely. 

 Moreover, sheep should be fed with young bullocks or neat- 

 stock : they got on much better together than separately 

 (Hear, hear). He was also of opinion that if two 

 years' seeds were adopted instead of the four-course 

 system, farmers would be enabled to keep a larger 

 amount of stock, and grow a greater quantity of corn 

 at a less proportionate cost than was incurred at pre- 

 sent. Where there was not a sufficient mixture of pas- 

 ture and arable land, if there were two years' seeds to 

 fall back upon, the malady which appeared to be so pre- 

 valent would perhaps, to a great extent, be avoided. 

 At all events, he believed the chief preventive was 

 change, whatever the change might be. 



Mr. Little (Landhill, Chippenham) would say a 

 few words with regard to the management of lambs by 

 the flockmasters of Wiltshire. He agreed with Mr. 

 Wallis and Mr. Paull, that change of food was what must 

 be chiefly relied upon as a preventive of disease among 

 sheep. On the sheep-breeding farms of Wiltshire ttiere 

 was no rich pasturage to be found. There they knew, 

 nothing of the disease which had been described by Mr. 



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