144 
head. The disease is new to me. The head of the sheep would swell, and in 
a, day or two the sheep would die, eating well almost to the last.” 
A correspondent in Cumberland county, Virginia, thus pictures the condition 
of sheep in that section: “There are a few animals here, called sheep, with long 
legs and tails, and long necks, that are turned out into old fields to shift for 
themselves winter and summer. They have no winter quarters except such as 
the thickets of pines give them; are rarely seen, and never fed, except it may 
be with a little fodder, when the snow covers the ground, and scarcely ever 
noticed but when a little wool is needed to be pulled or cut from their backs. 
And this is the treatment of this most valuable animal in a county that will 
grow turnips in the greatest abundance, and certainly, as proved by the last 
summer, when we had no more rain than would wet a pocket-handkerchief, from 
the middle of June to the last days of August, and yet fine turnips were grown ~ 
wherever any suitable preparations were made.” 
Walworth county, Wisconsin.“ Foot rot is quite common, but,is now so 
well understood and successfully treated that but a small per cent. of those 
attacked are lost. There are some cases (isolated) of iver rot, But there is a 
far more subtle and generally prevalent disease among the sheep than either of 
the above, termed “ goitre,’’ a well-known disease of the throat, and seems to be 
of a scrofulous character, which is widespread and very destructive, especially 
to lambs. This disease is new in this State, and appears to have originated 
from the use of high bred, and possibly ‘in and in bred’ bucks from the east, 
mostly Vermont. Its effect is more apparent in lambs at birth, and is marked 
by one or oftener two enlargements of the neck, and appears to be an enlarge- 
ment of the thyroid gland, and not unfrequently of the whole thyroid cartilage. 
The lambs thus affected are weak, seeming to be more affected in the neck than 
body ; and in many flocks a large per cent. are lost (in some cases seventy-five 
per cent. and over) from this disease. Mature sheep are not so much affected, 
or, at least, not in so marked and fatal a degree. ‘Though some flocks are rap- 
idly deteriorating from this cause, the disease, I fear, has not reached its climax. 
At present it threatens great damage to flocks, and seems to indicate a degree of 
loss far exceeding all the profits arising from the introduction of cmproved sheep. 
So far the disease is confined wholly, I believe, to the Vermont Merinos.” 
Bexar county, Texas—Sheep wintered well, but there was some loss from 
severe weather in the early part of this year, where sheep had no protection. 
The loss in my flocks in Bandera county, during the winter, was about twenty 
sheep; about one per cent. My sheep were not housed, but the pens were in 
a situation where the north and east winds were not much felt. 1 will remark 
that I used, during the winter, four tons of hay, eut from open lands on my 
estancia, which was a larger quantity than I have had put up any year of the 
five I have been in the business.” 
DISEASES OF HOGS. 
Almost all the diseases of swine seem to be popularly resolved into “hog 
cholera.” Of all diseases of domestic animals, those of this genus are evidently 
less thoroughly understood than that of any other farm stock. Ideas on the 
subject are in a singular state of confusion, and remedies are countless in num- 
ber and most incongruous in character. If the symptoms were accurately noted, 
it would probably be found that several kinds of “hog cholera,” as every preva- 
lent disease of the hog appears to be called, are uniting in the mischief produced. 
The New England States report no hog cholera, except a very little in Middle- 
sex county, Massachusetts; New York has but little; several counties in Penn- 
sylvania are afflicted ; in the southern States half the counties report it, Georgia, 
Mississippi, and Tennessee having very few counties free from its influence, while 
the valley of the Ohio is overrun with it, Ohio suffering less than the other corn- 
growing States, and Michigan and the northwest nearly exempt. 
