SHEEP. 91 



however, more or less numerous in the livers of 

 most, even healthy sheep ; and I have heard old 

 shepherds say, that if you keep a sheep to a very 

 advanced age, so that it dies a natural death, you 

 will, on opening it, usually find it rotten. Sheep, 

 then, are especially liable to this nabob ailment. On 

 the other side, there are those who maintain that, 

 taken early in hand, it may be cured. The liver 

 will sometimes make a desperate effort to renew 

 itself. Butchers tell me that they have found the 

 new supplanting the decayed. The infection can 

 scarcely have been severe, one would think. The 

 following is a useful drench, which it were prudent 

 to administer all round your flock at the fall of the 

 year, if the season have been wet : for an unusual 

 fall of rain, extemporising new springs upon the 

 pasture, to be evaporated again, will make the safest 

 ground "unsound." Hence you hear, in "a rotting 

 year," that sheep have "gone " on land which was 

 never known to affect them before. The drench is 

 as below. A neighbouring farmer attributes the 

 escape of his flock during this last disastrous season 

 to the use of it. I tried it on a few far gone without 

 benefit. However, here it is (Clater) : 



"Nitre in powder, six ounces. 

 Ginger fresh powdered, four ounces. 

 Colcothar of vitriol in fine powder, two ounces. 

 Common salt, three pounds and a half. 

 Boiling water, three gallons. 



"Pour the water hot upon the ingredients. Stir them, and add 

 to it, when lukewarm, three ounces of spirit of turpentine, and 

 bottle it for use." 



