SOME PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON UN- 

 SEASONABLE VELD-BURNING; AND ITS POS- 

 SIBLE RELATION TO SOME STOCK DISEASES. 



By Albert Oliver Dean Mogg, B.A. 



(Abstract.) 



Investigations on some stock diseases definitely Ijcnown to be 

 caused by plants necessitated a detailed study of the veld botani- 

 cally, and the causes producing veld-change. 



Ecological surveys in extreme detail, of the various pad- 

 docks of a single farm (keeping the records separate), throughout 

 one season, and then comparing the results, elicited most astonish- 

 ing and interesting results. 



These results were accentuated when several farms in one 

 district, similarly treated, were compared. 



And further, when the farms of entirely different ana 

 widely separated districts, carrying the same disease, were com- 

 pared, the facts concerning the powerful effect of veld-burning in 

 producing veld-change became of a graver nature. 



These facts elicited have led the writer to the conviction that 

 at least in the case of Dunziekte (" Grass Staggers ") in horses 

 (a disease associated with a geological formation), all velds in a 

 Dunziekte district are only potentially so (Dunsick), but may 

 become actively so by extensive velu-burmng at unseasonable 

 times, particularly if the farm be overstocked. The annual loss 

 of horses due to this disease amounts to several hundreds. 



It was also indicated how that on some physiological forma- 

 lions a sweet veld may be made sour in a comparatively short 

 time by indiscriminate burning (particularly spring and summer 

 burning). 



Division of Veterinary Research, 



Union Department of Agriculture, 

 Pretoria. 



THE PHILOLOGY OF THE NATIVE LANGUAGES 

 (ZULU AND XOSA). 



By Rev. Samuel Gershom Gilkes Aitchison, M.A., D.D. 



(Not printed.) 



