92 NOTES ON FIELDS AND CATTLE. 



Fallows are safer than pasture during a rotting 

 year, it is said : perhaps it is that cake and corn, or, 

 at least, hay— anyhow dry food is supplied them 

 there. Salt is esteemed a preventive ; whether it be 

 that it kills the fluke formation, as it strengthens 

 the inside of an ailing child, to the expulsion of a 

 worm bed or not, I don't know. Others consider 

 that a handful of dry barley each, daily, will keep 

 a flock sound. Others teach that it is advisable, 

 with this view, to sow some pounds of sheep parsley 

 over the meadows. It is readily obtained from any 

 seedsman. All these remedies are undoubtedly a 

 great help to the sheep's condition, but as to saving 

 them from liver disease, if exposed to the noisome 

 exhalation of a pestilent place, few men of experience 

 would rely thereupon. 



It is cheeriDg to learn that so distinguished a man 

 of science as Professor Symonds proposes inquiring 

 deeper into the nature and causes of the disease, 

 " with the hope that, ere long, preventive means may 

 be adopted to limit the development of the entozoon 

 — the liver fluke." 



Youatt states that more than four millions of sheep 

 died of rot alone in the United Kingdom during the 

 winter 1829-30. 



The unmistakeable symptoms of this disorder are 

 as follows — and you should have your flock often 

 inspected, for the dreaded change comes insidiously 

 on, so that, for a while, they even improve in flesh, 

 until they reach a certain point, when they begin to 

 go back with a run. To begin with, a sheep lags 

 behind the rest : then if you catch her and look 



