MINOR DISEASES 139 



Some got better in spite of his treatment ; and 

 some, let us charitably believe, on account of it. 



But even at his best the old horse leech was 

 an ignorant man who rarely looked into a book, 

 though he was a very interesting one, for who 

 so well as he was versed in the mysterious folk- 

 lore of animals and plants. It seems necessary 

 to emphasise that ignorant as he was, he was 

 in many country places the only man who was 

 available for advice for many years after the 

 nineteenth century opened. But about the 

 opening of the nineteenth century men were 

 beginning to look with a very different eye on 

 farming and the management of stock. The 

 writings of Arthur Young and still more of 

 WilHam Marshall and John Lawrence, himself a 

 veterinary surgeon, and others had drawn atten- 

 tion to the scientific side of Agriculture and 

 Stock Breeding. The early volumes of the 

 Sporting Magazine undoubtedly only appealed 

 to the ' bloods ' of Drury Lane, with their accounts 

 of more or less sanguinary duels, cases of crim. 

 con. et hoc genus omne ; but already a different 

 spirit was abroad and by the time the new 

 century had well opened technical articles found 

 their way into its pages. Rivals sprang up, 

 and a bitter war of words was waged between 

 various sets of writers. As an old friend of 

 mine used to say '' there is nothing like a little 

 healthy opposition, it brings out the truth,'' 

 and no doubt this war of words did bring out 

 some of the truth and drew attention to the 



