342 THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



remain at least three minutes in the bath (which should be warm), that every part of the skin 

 may become wet with this wash, after which the wool should be squeezed to take out the 

 surplus water. They should be dipped according to directions given for dipping for killing 

 ticks. 



An arsenic bath is often employed with good effect, but its use is attended with con 

 siderable danger, for if the bathed sheep are turned out into a pasture, and a rain storm 

 comes up, the arsenic will be liable to be washed from their fleeces upon the ground, and 

 be afterwards eaten, which may poison large numbers of the flock; besides, sheep will 

 sometimes lick each others fleeces and may obtain the poison in that manner. If left in a 

 tank where any bird or animal can have access to it, they are liable to drink it, since arsenic 

 is tasteless, and if poured upon the ground it is liable to filter into a well and do injury in 

 this manner, while if burned, it is still more dangerous, as it is condensed from the air on 

 surrounding vegetation, and may act as a slow poison on the animals that may eat it. 



Objections might also be urged against mercurial ointments, which are more slow in their 

 effects in poisoning the acari than arsenic, and leave injurious results upon the animals thus 

 treated, by absorption through the skin, among which are mercurial sore mouth, loss of teeth, 

 premature old age, and poor condition generally. It is, however, used quite extensively in 

 many portions of Great Britain. Tobacco, in proper quantity, is the safest, cheapest, and 

 most easy of application of any remedy with which we are familiar, and is equally sure. 



Many other remedies which are destructive to the acari, may be injurious to the wool, 

 or exercise a deteriorating effect upon it. This may be said of the alkalies, potassa, soda, and 

 their carbonates, which dry and wither the wool, stunting its growth and rendering it brittle, 

 while tar, carbolic acid, and sulphate of iron, are said by good authority to not only dry the 

 wool and render it brittle, but are liable to impart a permanent stain to it, which would be an 

 injury to the better class of wools. 



For dipping pregnant ewes, and very heavy sheep that require considerable care and 

 labor in lifting, an inclined plane leading down into the dipping tank and another leading out 

 of it, will be found a great convenience. The sheep can be held in the tank by the head a few 

 minutes and the liquid washed up on to the head with the hands. Sheep should be dipped, 

 if possible, in dry, pleasant weather, and kept in a yard until their fleeces are dry, and only 

 fed from racks, for if fed from the ground they may be liable to be poisoned from the drip 

 pings of their fleeces. &quot;When the weather is too cold and severe for dipping, and only a 

 limited number are slightly attacked, the diseased spots on the bodies of the sheep can be 

 carefully searched out and readily detected, and an application of the remedy turned upon 

 these parts of the animal from an old tea pot or dipper, and worked down through the wool 

 to the skin with the hands, which practice will often prove successful in arresting the disease 

 and accomplishing a complete cure. 



In more advanced stages of the disease, of course, the more thorough practice of dipping 

 will be necessitated. In all instances where scab has been known, great care must be 

 taken to exclude diseased sheep from well ones, and also from their pastures for several 

 weeks (some writers say three months), and to saturate every rubbing post, tree, stone, or 

 place that could have been used by the diseased sheep for rubbing against, with some of the 

 above-mentioned washes for exterminating the parasites, or with whitewash made of freshly- 

 burned quick lime. The same precaution should be used relative to their yards and the 

 straw |rom them that had been used for bedding while suffering from the disease. This 

 should be burned up, and new bedding put in its place. It would be well, also, to plow up 

 the yard, and thus throw up the clean, fresh soil. Too great precaution cannot be used to 

 prevent the spreading of this pest. They should by all means be put in a fresh pasture. 

 Cattle and horses can be pastured upon grounds previously grazed by affected sheep without 

 danger, .as ,the insect will not live upon them. 



