NO EMIGRATION. 53 



beginning of the week : one morning seventeen degrees, 

 the next at thirteen only above zero, when the next it 

 was as high as fifty-three ; these fluctuations arise by the 

 change of the wind from north-west to south-west. The 

 severity of two nights killed several lambs, but have yet as 

 many as ewes. Wolves last night bit a calf s tail off, and 

 otherwise lacerated it behind, and would have killed it, had 

 not the oxen been with them. Oxen will drive any number 

 of wolves, and even throw down the strongest fence, with a 

 strange noise to get at them, when a calf or a cow is 

 attacked. Began sowing peas (a white sort) 2f bushels 

 per acre, many people sow much less : the early maple 

 and grey peas, I think, would answer much better here, 

 as peas are mostly grown for hogs only. There is a 

 kind of dwarf kidney beans (white) sown in the fields, 

 and eaten in winter, which are very good, better than peas, 

 and I think would thrive well in England. Pigeons very 

 troublesome, both on the peas and spring wheat ; two boys 

 employed to keep them off. Used the new roller on the 

 wheat and meadow, made entirely of wood, which answers 

 well. Sowed a little Swedish turnip seed in the orchard. 

 Cows troubled with the hollow horn, never heard of it in 

 England. But the most destructive complaint incident to 

 cows and oxen is the murrain : the attack being sudden 

 they are often dead before found. There are two species of 

 this disease, the bloody and the dry murrain. It appears 

 to be an affection of the liver, or rather the blood, which is 

 abstracted from the heart and blood vessels to the liver and 

 bladder, and evacuated, while the animal lives, through the 

 latter ; and in the dry murrain the blood is nearly or quite 

 dried up. When the complaint comes on, they have a dull 

 sleepy appearance, and great pains and trembling as it 

 proceeds. I thought it might be caused by the want of 

 sufficient salt, as some cattle appear more subject to it than 

 others ; yet I am told there are numbers of cases, where 

 cattle have as much salt as they will take. It is supposed 

 to be caused by the sharp frosts : the remedy is to bore 

 a hole with a gimblet into the horns, about three inches 

 from the head, when wind, and sometimes blood, issues out. 

 April 22. This last week has been cold, and the spring- 

 is later than usual ; fields hardly look green yet. Spring 

 wheat just coming up, only three weeks in the ground. 

 Sowed oats, and more clover and Timothy grass, and pecked 

 G 



