Coo) [Jan., 
CHRONICLES OF SCIENCE. 
1. AGRICULTURE. 
Tur country has now for a month or two been free from the Cattle 
Plague ; and we may hope, that if the requisite precautions be taken 
at the ports of debarkation for foreign cattle, we may remain free 
from it for the future. In Cheshire, Norfolk, and Berwickshire—three 
widely separated counties—cases have been reported, and districts 
have been declared by the local authority to be infected; but in 
every instance, a further investigation, by the Veterinary professors 
sent down by the Government, has shown that the disease has 
not been Rinderpest, but some malady which has generally arisen 
from maltreatment. The provision of a metropolitan market exclu- 
sively for imported cattle near the point of landing, which is now 
contemplated, with extensive lairage there for young and breeding . 
stock imported to be fed in England, will, we hope, reduce the 
risk of any reintroduction of the infection to a minimum. Mean- 
while, however, we may place on record, that the history of the 
last great attack of the disease, which occurred at Lodge Farm, 
near Barking, in August last, proves that strict isolation and the 
abundant use of hot lime on roads and of carbolic acid in and about 
the cowsheds, enable us to insulate infected places, so that the mis- 
chief shall not spread. On a farm where 237 cows had been fed 
im six or seven separate sheds, two of these sheds, containing 111 
cows, were kept free of it in this way, notwithstanding that the 
disease was raging on all sides of them. 
The close of the Paris Exhibition enables many of our agricul- 
tural readers to look back upon the unequalled ilustration it has 
afforded of the implements and farm economy of many nations. 
There was certainly something in the dairy and general homesteads, 
of which specimens were given from Holland, to instruct the Eng- 
lish agricultural spectator ; but it was to the British section of this 
department chiefly that not only we, but the agricultural machine- 
makers of all other countries, looked for guidance. Now that the 
display is over, exhibitors are discussing both the relative and the 
actual value of the awards of medals and of merit which have been 
made by the examining juries. One thing seems certain: they 
bear no relation whatever to either the relative or the actual pro- 
fessional status of the several exhibiting countries. We are accus- 
tomed here to consider that the productiveness and enterprise of our 
