A GREAT FARM 141 



used to know as red water. At any rate it causes blood 

 to come from the kidneys and to appear in the milk. 



This plague was always supposed to be fatal if 

 contracted in autumn (cattle attacked in spring seldom 

 die), but recently a Norwegian veterinary has dis- 

 covered a cure for it, and I saw seven cows which had 

 been saved by his treatment. Mr. Tesdorpf believes 

 that the sickness is caused by eating something, what 

 he did not know, and pointed out to me a great field 

 of clover from which he had removed the cattle upon 

 this account. Also he said that it generally afflicted 

 animals which had been grazing in woodlands. 



When I asked the scientific authorities at the great 

 Agricultural Institute in Copenhagen about the matter, 

 however, they told me that they believed it to be 

 caused by ticks, which seems to tally with the latest 

 South African opinions. In Denmark, if not cured, 

 it kills in three days, which, if I remember right, was 

 about the duration of the acute form of the attack in 

 South Africa. Still the identity of these ailments is 

 only a suggestion of my own ; they may in fact be 

 totally distinct. 



The calves on this property had also been afflicted 

 with white scour, which Mr. Tesdorpf told me had now 

 departed from among them, at the same time touching 

 wood vigorously for fear lest this confident assertion 

 might bring it back. As a preventive of this com- 

 plaint the cows, when possible, are allowed to calve 

 in the open field, that is up to the beginning of 

 November, where sometimes the new-born calves are 

 found white with frost in the morning. This mode 

 of introduction into a cold world does not seem to 

 do them any harm. After all, many wild animals are 

 born in the open, including all the cattle tribe, though 



