Animal Report of the Consultiny Chemist. 285 



Having some thirty brood mares, I am much interested in this 

 matter, and hope I am not travelling out of the line intended bv 

 the Society (of which I am a life-member) in asking you to be 

 good enough to tell me Avhether your experience has shown you 

 that grass, left, say, for hay, and allowed to seed, but afterwards 

 grazed instead of being mown, is dangerous to brood mares, 

 chemically. I know it is practically dangerous, from the bulk 

 they may eat, if allowed to remain in it more than a limited time. 

 Breeders are liable to cases of slipping foal every year. This 

 year I have three or four cases ; but I can account for most of 

 them from accident or otherwise." 



The preceding letter reminds me of a case which was referred 

 to me last September. A gentleman residing in Essex sent me 

 some specimens of grass in seed for examination. The grass was 

 Italian rye-grass, and the seeds, I found at a glance, were attacked 

 by ergot, a fungoid growth which not unfrequently affects the 

 grain of rye. Ergot, however, is not confined to rye, for I have 

 found it myself on Ghjceria fluitans ; and rye-grass, and probabl}^ 

 other grass-seeds, are liable to become ergotised. 



The specimens which were sent to me for examination came 

 from a piece of old turf on fair clay land, on which no rye-grass- 

 had been sown in the memory of man. A valuable brood mare cast 

 a foal and died in a few hours, after feeding in the pasture from, 

 which the seeded grass was taken. Several other brood mares 

 and foals feeding in the same field sustained no injury. 



Several cases of sudden deaths of horses, I am informed, 

 occurred in Essex last autumn, the cause of death being involved 

 in much uncertainty. 



There can be no doubt that ergot is not confined to the grain 

 of rye, and that grass-seeds attacked by ergot are poisonous. 



Ergot possesses powerful medicinal effects, and is used specialljr 

 in diseases of the uterus, and is well known to produce abortion. 

 It does not attack the stem or leaves of grass, but only the seed ;. 

 and hence it would appear desirable not to keep brood mares in 

 fields in which the grass has been allowed to run to seed and 

 become dead ripe.* 



In conclusion I have to report to the Committee the results of 

 an analysis to which I submitted a specimen of iron-slag, handed 

 to me by Earl Cathcart. 



The slag was very light and porous, and was readily crushed 

 into a fine voluminous powder. It yielded on analysis the 

 following results : — 



* The subject of ergot in grass-seeds has been referred to the Consulting 

 Botanist of the Society, whose Report -will be published in the next Number of 

 the Journal. — Edit. 



