CURE OP FOOT. ROT. 695 



foot-rot badly. It was the same with flocks generally in the 

 neighborhood, and their owners, disheartened with repeated 

 attempts to cure them, were selling out and buying new. This 

 flock was of Merinos, and highly valued by the owner. The 

 common remedy was the application of a solution of blue vit- 

 riol, swabbed on after paring the hoof properly. I became con- 

 vinced that the manner of applying the remedy was wrong, not 

 the remedy itself ; in other words, that they were not thorough 

 in applying it. Swabbing did not always reach every crevice 

 or spot in the hoof. I built a small box-pen that would hold 

 just four sheep packed in solid like spoons, so that they could 

 not move round ; made each end a door, and put a water-tight 

 box of same size, a foot high, in the bottom. Into this I poured 

 a solution of the vitriol deep enough to reach above the hoofs. 

 I conveyed steam from a large iron kettle through a tin pipe into 

 this, to keep it as warm as we could bear our fingers in. We 

 had a thorough-going, faithful Scotch shepherd in charge of 

 the flock. I had the sheep held in front of him, feet upwards. 

 He sat and pared the feet of each one. One finished, it was 

 removed, and a second attendant supplied its place with an- 

 other, and so on. In this way he never left his seat or lost a 

 moment. Every sheep went through his inspection and opera- 

 tion. I could trust him implicitly, in his thoroughness. By this 

 little system he handled, single-handed, the flock, large as it 

 was, rapidly. After he was through with each sheep it was 

 stood ill the solution. Four filled the pen, and when the fifth 

 was ready the first was let out, and so on. In this way each 

 sheep stood in the warm solution about fifteen minutes. It is 

 needless to say the remedy was thus applied in a very thor- 

 ough way, practical for the handling of a large flock. On the 

 second application the disease had almost entirely disappeared. 

 The third wiped it all out. 



FARM ACCOUNTS. 



I found it impossible to carry on farm operations by hired 

 help, without kee[)ing accounts with every thing. Nor did I 

 find it absolutely necessary to be skilled in book-keeping. The 



