COMMON ILLS OF CATTLE. 157 



knows how useful they are. No doubt the medicines prepared 

 by other firms are good ; I only speak of those I know. 



Blackleg. This fatal but not infectious malady, otherwise 

 called "speed," or " hyant," or "quarter-ill," belongs particularly 

 to certain soils, chiefly those which are " unsound ; " but no soil, 

 perhaps, can be declared absolutely proof against it. It usually 

 attacks calves in their first autumn, frequently the best of them, 

 but yearlings and " twinters " are not always exempt from it. 

 If you see a calf alone away from its mates under a hedge 

 or a wall, you may suspect something to be wrong; if when 

 you approach it moves not away, but hangs down its head and 

 looks sleepy, and the skin when rubbed rustles like a silk dress, 

 you may be certain that something is wrong, and that this 

 " something " is blackleg. 



The next best thing is to kill the calf out of its not pain, 

 perhaps, but dull and hopeless misery, for it is certain to die 

 in a few hours' time. At all events, I have never known one 

 to recover. If anything can save it, however, it is Day's Red 

 Drink in gruel and treacle, the calf, if a strong one, having been 

 previously bled. 



The malady is owing to deleterious matter in the blood, and 

 can only be prevented by careful treatment and feeding. Calves 

 should be kept thriving uniformly but not rapidly, and not on 

 great and sudden changes of food. In order to in some mea- 

 sure preserve continuity in kind of food, as between autumn 

 and winter, it is good practice to accustom calves to linseed 

 cake from the time when first they are able to eat it just a 

 little of it through the autumn and winter, say half a pound to 

 one pound per day, and occasionally a little salt mixed with it. 

 Young calves are not liable to blackleg ; the most dangerous 

 time is when they are five or six up to twelve months old. 

 The last three months of the year seem to be the most 

 dangerous, and November the worst of all. In some years the 

 calves die numerously in that month, but the years vary very 

 much. 



My experience is that they are less liable to it if they run 

 loose all winter on sheltered land, or with a shed to run under 



