THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



479 



to which he was particularly anxious to direct attention. 

 They all knew that this had been a great year for lambs, 

 the number of couples being very great. Now his own 

 experience went to show that where there was a couple 

 of lambs there was much more disease and liability to 

 death than where there was a single lamb. He had ob- 

 served that the teats of ewes which had two lambs got 

 into sucii a state, that their appearance resembled that 

 of smallpox in the human being, and that this was not 

 the case where there was only one lamb. He thought a 

 great deal of harm was done by the excessive interference 

 of many shepherds in the way of manipulation with re- 

 gard to the ewes. It would in most cases be far better 

 to leave nature to herself. 



The Chairman said he had very little to add to what 

 they had already heard. Mr. Marshall had given them 

 a very excellent paper, but the disease to which he re- 

 ferred must be a very different one from that which pre- 

 vailed in his own locality. Mr. Wallis spoke of low 

 feeding as one cause of disease ; now he always considered 

 sheep higliest fed were most subject to be attacked 

 (Hear, hear). He thought that the state of the blood 

 had a great deal to do with the matter. As intimated 

 by Mr. Williams, he had lost a great many lambs from 

 ' disease. He lost as many as seventy in one field 

 in fourteen days. His losses generally occurred at quite 

 a different period from that mentioned by Mr. Marshall ; 

 they occurred when the lambs were from six to twelve 

 weeks old. He quite agreed with Mr. Williams that 

 the food of the mother was the great source of the dis- 

 ease and that the only means of avoiding it therefore 

 was to wean them early. The lambs that died were all 

 taken off in the same way. He never saw one recover 

 after being affected. The chief symptoms were a slight 

 foaming at the mouth and a nodding of the head as if 

 the animal were feeding. His sheep had not escaped ; 

 he had something like 200 sheep feeding in yards at that 

 moment, and he had lost fourteen of the flock since he 

 put them there. He agreed with Mr. James with 

 regard to the great loss which was generally sustained 

 where double couples. He had lost from thirty to 

 forty lambs that were twins ; and, as regarded his 

 ewes, while on the one hand he had lost upwards of 

 thirty ewes that brought two lambs, he had lost only 

 two ewes that brought a single lamb. In February the 

 twins came very thick, and the ewes being short of milk 

 he had recourse to cow's milk to make up the deficiency. 

 The lambs (being all double couples) continually suck- 

 ing, and from the sharp and cold east winds, the ewes' 

 udders became sore, and the lambs had bad mouths, so 

 much so their lips were three times as thick as they 

 should be, and the teeth projected in front. He used 

 alum and treacle, but was obliged to call in veterinary 

 surgeon who pronounced it small-pox. It certainly had 

 every appearance of small-pox , the udders being in spots, 

 all sores and a scab. They were put by themselves in 

 warm yards, dosed and ointment applied till cured. 



Mr. Marshall then replied. There appeared, he 

 observed, to be the greatest difference between the system 

 of managing lambs adopted in the West of England and 

 that adopted in his own part of the country. He did 

 not at all agree with Mr. Wallis that over-stocking was 



the cause of his losses. Last year, when he lost the 

 greatest quantity of lambs that he ever lost in his life, 

 his pastures were exceedingly good. As regarded the 

 changing which was suggested, he took it for granted 

 that if they had a quantity of sheep that were doing 

 badly a change must be desirable. In Lincolnshire, 

 however, they never changed the sheep which were de- 

 pastured upon seeds. When they were taken out of 

 the lamb- yard they were put upon a field of seeds, and 

 were never taken out of it till they were weaned. As 

 regarded the quality of the grazinglandof North Lincoln- 

 shire, he must say it was naturally almost as poor 

 as any on earth. He concurred in what had been said with 

 respect to the value of sainfoin. He had himself a field of 

 sainfoin, and he never saw his sheep do better than they 

 did on that. Whenever any of them were attacked 

 with diarrhoea he put them on sainfoin, and they were 

 cured within a week. It was to be regretted that no 

 gentleman had given them the result of a post morlem 

 examination of any of the lambs that had died in Berk- 

 shire or the West of England. Mr. Williams had made 

 some interesting remarks as to the symptoms of the 

 disease in his own locality, but he had not said anything 

 which tended to show what the disease arose from. As 

 to the diseased udJers, ©f which Mr. James had spoken, 

 having himself long suffered from that cause, he could 

 assure him that the evil was not confined to ewes that 

 had pairs of lambs (Hear, hear). He had seen that 

 malady among his flock as many as fifteen or twenty 

 times this year, and it prevailed quite as much among 

 sheep that had only one lamb as among those that had 

 two lambs. He never observed any difference in that 

 respect. There was a very good cure for that malady— 

 an ointment which was sold in a market town of Lin- 

 colnshire. If that ointment were applied to those parts 

 of the udder which were cracked, the application was 

 sure to effect a cure within two or three days. 



The Rev. C. T. James : Can you give the name of 

 that ointment ? 



Mr. Marshall named Mr. Cartwright, of Horn- 

 castle, as the only druggist from which the ointment 

 could be procured. 



Mr. Williams (Baydon) wished to be allowed to 

 make one observation in reference to what had fallen 

 from Mr. Marshall about a post mortem examination. 

 He thought that was a matter which had been too long 

 neglected ; and he was convinced that if some deadlambs 

 — say five or six from different farms — were sent to the 

 Veterinary Professor of the Royal Agricultural Society for 

 examination, he would with great pleasure do what was 

 required. 



Mr. Corbet observed that the Professor had asked 

 for them over and over again. 



Mr. Williams trusted, then, that something would 

 soon be done in the matter (Hear, hear). All he could 

 say on the subject was that the disease was an exceed- 

 ingly rapid one. When the shepherd left the flock in 

 the evening, the animals appeared quite well ; the next 

 morning they were dead. On cutting some of them 

 open, he had found the bowels void of food, and in a high 

 state of inflammation. All the smaller bowels of the 

 animal were filled with a nasty-looking fluid, as red as 



