512 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Experience has amply demonstrated that a properly made and properly 

 used lime and sulphur dip is one of the cheapest and most eflQcient scab 

 eradicators known, but its use should be confined to flocks in which scab 

 is known to exist, and to shorn sheep, with the exception of very severe 

 cases of scab in unshorn sheep. It should only be used when it can be 

 properly boiled and settled. The use of the lime and sulphur dips in 

 flocks not known to have scab, especially if the sheep are full fleeced, can 

 not be recommended; in such cases tobacco or sulphur and tobacco is safer 

 and equally good. 



If a lime and sulphur dip is chosen it is better for ordinary cases to 

 use the solutions containing a small amount of lime and three times as 

 much sulphur as lime, as the Fort Collins formula, 33 pounds of sulphur 

 and 11 pounds of lime to every 100 gallons of water, or the bureau of ani- 

 mal industry formula (No. 6), 24 pounds of sulphur and 8 pounds of lime 

 to 100 gallons of water, rather than the formula with a greater pro- 

 portion of lime. 



If the stronger solutions, as the Victorian formula (No. 1), or the 

 present South African formula (No. 3), or the Nevada formula (No. 4) 

 are used at all, their use should be confined to unusually severe outbreaks. 

 Under no circumstances should the California formula be used. It is too 

 strong and is liable to kill the sheep. 



Another objection raised to the use of lime and sulphur is the claim 

 that the "shrinkage" in weight of the sheep after the use of these dips 

 is greater than after the use of other dips. In reply to this objection, it 

 can only be repeated that such has not been the experience of Professor 

 Gillette in his experiments in Colorado. The burden of proof for the 

 opposite statement, with exact statistics, rests upon those who raise the 

 objection. 



Still another objection advanced against lime and sulphur is that its 

 continued use year after year will gradually decrease the annual clip. 

 Whether this objection be valid or not, it is scarcely necessary to discuss 

 it in detail in this bulletin; for, in the first place, the average sheep 

 raiser of this country does not keep the same sheep "year after year," 

 but sends most of his sheep (breeding ewes and the rams excepted) 

 to market. Hence there will usually be little opportunity to injure the 

 wool of a given animal "year after year." In the next place, if lime and 

 sulphur are properly used one year, so that the flock is freed from scab, 

 and if reinfection be guarded against it will not be necessary to resort 

 again to lime and sulphur. 



These objections have been reviewed somewhat in detail in order to 

 place the facts, so far as obtainable, before the farmer. It is not par- 

 ticularly advised by the department that lime and sulphur be used in this 

 country in preference to sulphur and tobacco, or tobacco alone, or any 

 other effective dip. In fact, it is hoped that within ten years there 

 will be no further use for the lime and sulphur dips. At the same time, 

 where it is a choice, on the one hand, between the lime and sulphur, with 

 a slight deterioration in the value of the wool, but ,an absence of scab, 

 and, on the other hand, the use of a secret and ineffective patent dip, 

 with the continual presence of scab, and hence permanent deterioration 

 in wool, there can be no doubt that the decision should be in favor of 

 lime and sulphur (properly prepared and properly used). 



