PREVENTING AILMENTS OF RUMINANTS 301 



had to rely on this class of herbage alone for their 

 existence should fall a victim to this disease. 



The improvement of land on mountain slopes and 

 high hills is not an easy matter. Sheep or open drains 

 are sometimes made to drain the excess of water away, 

 and these serve a very useful purpose, but artificial 

 manuring is in a good many cases more or less out of 

 the question on account of the difficulties of hauling, 

 and shallowness of the soil. 



Lowland pastures. Wet pasture-land abounds with 

 the eggs and embryos of internal parasites, which pull 

 sheep and cattle down in condition very soon, when 

 they are once established in the system. Further, the 

 herbage of wet land consists of rushes, sedges, hard- 

 leaved, indigestible grasses, creeping buttercups, and 

 other acrid plants, etc., none of which is either appetis- 

 ing or calculated to put the sheep and cattle into 

 good condition, consequently they are at a double 

 disadvantage, viz., disease is plentiful, and they are 

 insufficiently nourished to withstand it. 



To improve these pastures, drainage is necessary. 

 This alone will tend to improve the class of herbage ; 

 but a dressing in winter of basic slag and kainit, or, on 

 soils containing sufficient lime, potassic super, will 

 generally be found necessary to convert the sour, 

 unattractive, innutritious herbage into one which is 

 attractive, sappy, and nutritious. The kainit will 

 encourage the stock to graze the old " fog " off, which 

 is a great advantage. 



Apart from .the fact that the land carries a larger 

 number of stock, the animals become healthier and 

 thrive much better. In Herefordshire, certain fields 

 which were very subject to blackleg have apparently 

 been freed by dressing the land with basic slag. 



