Report of the Department of xVgriculture. 529 



250 vegetation samples, upon 100 of which full analyses have been 

 made; 100 poisoning- cases and 200 " miscellaneous," including food- 

 stuffs, waters, stock remedies, vaccines, blood and urine examination, 

 etc. The total number of actual determinations runs into several 

 thousand and need not he detailed. 



Stock Dip Regulation if. — Tow^ards the end of the year the 

 technical executive work of the stock dip regulations was \indertaken 

 in regard to registration forms, and conformity of composition of 

 products offered for sale with guarantee under the regulations. It 

 may be remarked that failure to produce sound scientific articles is 

 due to ignorance of requirements rather than to deliberate fraud, 

 and iliot tJie problem o'f control is likely to find its solution in 

 advisory work for manufacturers rather than in prosecution under 

 the Act'. 



o. Research Work. 



Lanisiekte in Catth . — The experiments continued tlie work of 

 previous years, and were also developed in new directions of great 

 economic importance. The present programme includes further 

 experiments upon the most economical mode of phosphorus feeding 

 and the most economical compounds to use; upon the influence of 

 factors such as age, weight, and individuality, in relation to 

 phosphorus requirements for nutrition and for control of lanisiekte 

 through control of osteophagia; upon the influence of phosphorus and 

 other coinpounds on skeletal development, rate of growth and speed 

 of reaching maturity; upon milk yield of cows and upon food con- 

 sumption. It also includes experiments designed to bring out the 

 influence of nutritional factors other than phosphorus, and to eluci- 

 date completely the causes of the winter fall in butcher-weight of 

 stock on poor veld grazing. 



These involve a study of soil and climate : of the physiology of 

 stock nutrition; of the chemical and botanical composition of indi- 

 genous grasses; and of infl.uences such as overstocking and veld-burn- 

 ing on the nutritive value of the pasture. These are all practical 

 problems, the solution of which has an immediate economic value. 

 The most striking results so far obtained bear upon the nutritional 

 a.spect of phosphorus deficiency, and show that phosphorus is a limit- 

 ing factor in the growth rate of cattle, and a dominant factor in the 

 maintenance of live-weight under ordinary conditions of veld grazing. 

 The cost of phosphorus feeding must, therefore, not be credited only 

 to insurance against lanisiekte, but also to increase in beef produc- 

 tion. A profit and loss account in some of the Armoedsvlakte experi- 

 ments shows a clear profit of 300 per cent, upon the cost of treatment. 

 Since the areas in the Union to which the nutritional factors apply 

 are far wider than those over which lamsiekte occurs, ihe annual 

 financial gain to the stock-raising industry in the future can easily 

 be made to exceed the annual financial losses from lamsiekte in the 

 past; so that the disease itself, by focussing attention upon greater 

 issues, will ultimately prove to have been a blessing in disguise, and 

 the expenditure upon the present investigations be reflected in the 

 beef export trade of the ITnion. 



