41G 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



died or had to be slaughtered. He Lad heard of the bene- 

 fits of homoeopathic treatment. One morning when he went 

 to his farm he found two cows down with the disease ; he 

 separated them, and treated one homoeopathically — the 

 other according to the old system. The cow treated 

 homoeopathically died; the other recovered sufficiently to 

 allow of her being got into condition for the butcher. Pie 

 could not help thinking if the case had been vice versa how 

 the power of homo2opatliic treatment would have been cried 

 up ; as it was, nothing was thought of it. 



Mr, J. A. Hempson detailed cases where the disease 

 broke out in bullocks which had been healthy, and had not 

 been exposed to contagion. lie had had it, too, in his dairy. 

 Those cows near calving, or which had recently calved, 

 never recovered. In the case of the cows which died pre- 

 vious to calviug, the lungs of the foetus were found diseased ; 

 where the cows died after calving, the calves died in a few 

 days from the disease. Speaking of the disease of sheep, he 

 observed that the particular affection under consideration 

 this evening was known only in lambs. It showed itself in 

 them most when feeding clovers the second time ; he had 

 never known park- fed lambs affected. In clovers, as a general 

 rule, the shorter the feed the better for the lambs. When 

 the disease visited him, he lost fifty lambs out of a hundred- 

 No sheep would take it— not even shearlings ; he put some 

 with the lambs on purpose to try it ; but while the lambs 

 were dying fast, the sheep were not at all affected. He 

 had examined many after death ; all the vital organs 

 appeared healthy ; he could find nothing but the worms. 



Mr. Shortkn mentioned that, in the case of some lambs 

 he had examined, he had found the liver very much dete- 

 riorated, presenting a clayey appearance, and breaking very 

 readily to pieces. 



Mr, Hempson said he had seen lambs affected so; but 

 the most of those he had lost did not present this appear- 

 ance. 



Mr. Neve expressed his thanks to Mr. Shorten for the 

 readiness and the ability with which he had served the club. 

 He thought we could hardly discuss a subject of greater im- 

 portance, either to the farmer or to the public. On what- 

 ever scale we farmed we suffered by the ravages of these 

 diseases. Their prevalence, too, probably had much to do 

 with the high price of meat. The lamb question appeared 

 to him even more serious than the lung disease. The great- 

 est diversity of opinion appeared to exist with reference to 

 the cause of thia disease. Some attributed it to feeding 

 young layers, some to old, some to red clover, some to white. 

 It was remarkable that it was confined to lambs. We 

 weaned lambs earlier than formerly, and forced them more 

 in feeding ; he suggested whether these things might not 

 have some influence in weakening their constitutions. The 

 fact of lambs only being subject to the disease, he thought 

 indicated that the food did not originate it. The lung disease 

 he had been fortunate enough to escape for many years, but 

 last year it had found him out. From what he had seen, it 

 appeared to him to be very capricious. From some cases we 

 were led to conclude it was contagious, while other cases led 

 to an opposite conclusion. He had known a lot of bullocks 

 bought at a fair, and when they were brought home, divided 

 into three different lots and sent to three different farms ; 

 two lots were visited with the disease ; the third entirely 

 escaped : of the two lots affected, one began to fall off about 

 Michaelmas, and the second about Christmas. The lot was 

 bought in September. In another case, a lot of thirteen was 

 bought; the disease appeared ; four or five had to be slaugh- 

 tered, and the rest were immediately sold : they went to a 



farm about four miles distant, where they were fattened, 

 and did well. 



Mr. Allen Ransome mentioned a case of four cows 

 which had never been in the way of contagion ; the disease 

 appeared, and they all had to go. 



Mr. Hemp.son, in answer to a question from Mr. Biddell 

 as to the disease in lambs, said he had never known it break 

 out when they were on turnips. It had always visited him 

 earlier ; it appeared to strike the flock all at once like a 

 blight ; some died quickly, and some lingered long ; so that 

 some died when feeding on turnips, but they were affected 

 before. 



Mr. Skeet expressed his thanks to Mr. Shorten, and 

 thougbt that gentleman's remarks were quite just, that if 

 tho farmer did not consult his veterinary surgeon when new 

 and peculiar diseases appeared, he was injuring himself by 

 depriving such gentlemen of the opportunity of becoming 

 acquainted with such diseases. The first lambs he had lost 

 were from the heads of the flock; these had always lived 

 well, had been frequently shifted, and looked thrifty up to 

 the time of seizure. The rest of these lambs had gone on 

 well. Those taken gradually dwindled. It broke out again 

 in the tails of the flock. An old shepherd told him that if 

 he examined the affected lambs he would find worms in 

 their lungs. The shepherd's theory was, that the worms 

 were bred in the stomach, that they crawled up the swallow, 

 and then down the windpipe into the lungs. He examined 

 several ; he found no worms in the first stomach, but found 

 some iu the fourtii. He found worms in the windpipe, in 

 different places ; in some there were no worms in the pipe, 

 but only iu the bronchial tubes. In some, where he could 

 not find worms, there was a thickening of the lung at its 

 extremity. 



Mr. T. Hawkins, respecting lambs, had had considerable 

 experience. He had had the disease in lambs that had uni- 

 formly lived well and in lambs that had lived low. He had 

 had it amongst some valuable ram-Iambs : they did not 

 giadually waste, as was the case generally, but died quickly. 

 These lambs had lived particularly well. The cause could 

 not be in early weaning. Hampshire farmers had long been 

 accustomed to wean much earlier than we, and the disease 

 had only ves'y recently appeared amongst them. His sliep- 

 herd thought the potato disease had sometliing to do with it, 

 or rather whatever caused the potato disease caused the 

 disease in lambs. He grounded his opinion on the fact that 

 the two diseases appeared about the same time in different 

 years, sometimes earlier, sometimes later, but always both 

 together. As to a remedy, he had found in three successive 

 years that putting the lambs into early coleworts to feed 

 checked the progress of the disease; in fact, it cured the 

 lambs. He felt very confident we might rely upon this 

 remedy. As to the "lung disease" in cattle, he was per- 

 suaded it was infectious. 



Mr. B. Spurling had had some experience of the lamb 

 disease. He had some superior lambs to all appearance in 

 perfect health; he put them into a piece of second-crop 

 clover, where the feed was abundant. In a day or two the 

 lambs began to aUer: he removed them directly, but they 

 still kept dying. He was confident early weaning had no- 

 thing to do with it, for he had known lambs affected while 

 on their mothers. 



Mr. Shorten stated that he had known cases resembling 

 the experience of Mr. Hawkins, where coleworts had proved 

 very beneficial in arresting the disease, 



Mr. H. Okfoed related some cases of lung disease in 

 cows which had come under his observation, where the 



