THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



21 



truly set out, but not transplanted. He should like to alter 

 the distance a little; for he was not at all prejudiced in fa- 

 vour of any conceit he had taken up. There was one re- 

 mark he should like to make, in answer to what Mr. Robert 

 Rand had said respectint; his cookinf: rather high. Mr. 

 Garnham had told them that he took off 70 loads of twitch. 

 He thought he had very wisely returned it to the land, and 

 had no doubt he had derived a little profit from it; but 

 every experienced farmer would know that those 70 loads 

 of twilch had taken something out of the land, before being 

 returned upon it. Therefore, if he cooked a little richly 

 after this exhauation had been going on, he thought he was 

 right. He did not know, after all, that his 2 cwt. of guano, 

 2 cwt. of superphosphate, and 4 cwt. of salt, with lime, &c., 

 had coat so much as the cooking of bean-meal and 

 barley-meal with which Mr, Rand fed his sheep. — 

 Mr. Rand, in subsequently addressing the meeting, said 

 when Mr. Gurdon talked, last year, of transplanting man- 

 golds, he supposed that he meant the taking them out where 

 they were grown — a plan which generally resulted in 

 failure, the tap-root being injured. With all his (Mr. 

 Rand's) experience, he had never found a transplanted 

 mangold come up equal to those which came up (rem 

 seed. Mr. Gurdon had certainly taught him how 

 to grow transplanted mangolds ; but he believed 

 he had grown his own mangold cheaper than Mr, Gurdon. The 

 piece of ground had mangolds on last 'year, but he did not 

 take a prize for roots from it, but from some of the same de- 

 scription of land. The produce was about forty tons, of which 

 he kept about twenty, with which he fed his sheep on the 

 piece, and all he did to the land was to plough it once ; after 

 the sheep had fed oflF these and artificial foods, he drilled man- 

 golds, and the result was what had been stated to them. When 

 the plants came up the wire-worm played sad tricks with him, 

 so that he had to put in more seed ; in many places as much 

 as one-fourth was taken off. These freah seeds were too late, 

 and did not come up as they might have done, but if he had 

 got the weight the judges had announced, he would say it was 

 a profitable crop, and he was very well satisfied. Had he put 

 in a little more farm-yard manure, he thought he should not 

 have stood in the position he now did ; but he admitted he 

 was fairly beaten, though another year he would do his best 

 to succeed. Mr. Rand concluded by a strong appeal in favour 

 of increasing the growth of mangolds, as a crop of very great 

 importance. — The health of Mr. M. Biddell, the vice-president 

 of the Ipswich Farmers' Club, was afterwards proposed ; and 

 Mr. Biddell, in responding, said, as to transplanting beet, Mr. 

 Gurdon had thrown much light upon it. He himself had 

 gone on Mr. Rand's system, and thought it a poor substitute 

 for a good plant ; he put in a root and expected it to grow, 

 and it did keep alive, but it increased very little, and the thing 

 he had found hardly worth doing. Planting on boards he 

 thought a capital plan. — Mr. Gurdon next directed attention 

 to the losses sustained recently among stock, observing that 

 he much regretted to hear that a neighbour of his own, in an 

 adjoining parish, had lost about five score of lambs in a short 

 time. He himself was not a sheep breeder, his not being a 

 breeding farm, but in bullocks his losses had been greater even 

 than others in comparison with his occupation, so great that 

 he had thought it desirable at once, on the suggestion of Mr. 

 Fisher Hobbs, whom he had happened to meet and talk 

 with on the subject, to write to the Council of the Royal 

 Agricultural Society that they should either at their ex- 

 pense or his own send down the veterinary surgeon of the 

 Society, Professor Simonds. Well, he came down; and his 

 first observation was, "My advice is, to send it to the 

 butcher's." His (Mr. Gurdon's) answer was, " I could do that 

 without sending to you ; I sent for yon to know if science can 

 aid us in this matter. We are in a difficulty, and we do not 

 know the cause of this disease. Now, prevention is better 

 than cure ; and 1 want to know, not merely how I may save 

 the animals in the yard, but how I may prevent any future 

 ones on my farm from taking the disorder, if possible." He 

 thought it would be well to state a few facts, so far as his ex- 

 perience went ; for it was, as Mr. Biddell had stated, by 

 giving lacts here and there that they might see if they could 

 put them together and draw conclusions from them. He con- 

 fessed he was much bsfHed ; he had thought much upon the 

 subject, but he certainly got very little information from Pro- 

 fessor Simonds as to the cause of the diseaoe. No doubt that 

 gentleman gave conscientious advice in telling him to send to 



the butcher; but that was only the £ s. d. consideration, that 

 the first loss probably would be the least loss. There was 

 one thing he ought to state. He said to Professor Simonds 

 — " First let me ask you if there is any objection to sending 

 these animals to the butcher ? for I do not think it is for 

 those who are not absolutely in positive need to pack off a 

 quantity of flesh for human food when it is unfit for that pur- 

 pose." His answer was — and he thought it right that it 

 should go further — " There is not the slightest objection in 

 the world, unless the animal is in the last stage of life : 

 when the disease has arrived at that extent that the whole 

 animal is inflamed all over — then, no doubt, it is improper to 

 send it to the butchers : probably that would only take place 

 within the last day or two of its life, therefore up to that time 

 there is not the slightest objection to its being consumed for 

 human food." Then, as to the treatment, Professor Simonds 

 examined two bullocks ; he tapped them about just as a phy- 

 sician would do when wishing to see if a person's lungs or 

 liver adhered to the side. He then said, pointing to one of 

 them, " That bullock is a hopeless case"; and he was quite 

 right, for it died. He asked Mr. Garnham what he had done, 

 and he said he had only dissolved a Cupias's ball, and given 

 it that. Professor Simonds gave a prescription ; and the only 

 difference he could make out was, that he added ammonia to 

 the nitre, or things of that kind, to stimulate the constitution 

 and give a little help to the animal. He also recommended a 

 blister ; and the second bullock received no other treatment than 

 a large blister on the side. That bullock was now doing as well as 

 possible. His diflBculties did not end with these two bullocks. 

 Mr. Gurdon proceeded to state, in detail, the losses he had 

 sustained in five lots he bad purchased since Michaelmas 

 twelvemonths, showing there had been a very considerable 

 sacrifice, llie third lot never went down to the marshes at 

 all ; and here was the only fact to which he could point for a 

 conclusion to be derived from it, as it was the only lot that 

 had been free from disease. He thought it best that they 

 should not separate that evening without this subject being 

 brought under notice, and therefore he had purposely stayed 

 after the chairman left, fur he thought it desirable to see if 

 any information could be drawn from any of the members. 

 The fact he had already mentioned was the only thing symp- 

 tomatic of cause and efl'ect. When his meadows were under 

 water, he sent for the engineer of the Eastern Union, and, by 

 cleverly adjusting the levels, they got the water off, conveying 

 it higher up the river. He had the misfortune of having a 

 mill stream near by; and every one farming in the neighhonr- 

 hood of sucn stream knew thecuree of it. On the other side were 

 wealthy proprietors, who he did not think spent very much on 

 their meadows ; but the singular thing was that, though their 

 bullocks lived, as it were, in the water, while his were on dry 

 land, they were well and his were ill. Some people suggested 

 that he took too much care of his bullocks. They lived 

 in sheds in the straw-yards ; and instead of being, 

 as his neighbour's bullocks were, like rampant lions 

 on a sign-board, they were carefully penned up 

 in their yards. He was inclined to think that 

 the others might run the pleuro-pneumonia off. — Mr. 

 T. Hawkins said, perhaps no farmer in the room had suf- 

 fered more from the disease to which Mr. Gurdon bad alluded 

 — the pleuro-pneumonia in cattle, and that other disease which 

 he had mentioned as just now so rife amongst the flocks 

 through Suffolk, than he had. Mr. Gurdon had said that a 

 farmer close by his had lost four or five score lambs ; he 

 thought he knew pretty well to whom he alluded, but he 

 fancied the loss was between nine and ten score since Mid- 

 summer. He (Mr. Hawkins) looked over that flock in the 

 beginning of June, before the lambs were taken off, and never 

 saw better-looking ones ; and he rather envied him for bavin; 

 beaten himself, though he had kept his the best. He beat him 

 in the end by giving them artificial food, which certainly 

 seemed to ward off this disease, which was a very peculiar one. 

 He himself last year lost between seven and eight score lamba 

 by it, but this year only about a score— not more. Last year 

 when they met he told them what he thought the disease was 

 owing to, but was disposed now to alter his opinion, and to 

 think that what he referred to had nothing to do with the 

 disease, as he found from experience that it would break out 

 under aH circumttances. He supposed it was from his siep- 

 herd having kept them too long en white clover, but that was 

 not the case ; for they found the disease equally among thriving 

 lambs as amongst poverty-stricken and half-starved ones. He 



