THE DISEASES OF CATTLE. 323 



water is not of the best kind, neither is it very abundant ; 

 lience, in consequence of its insujQQciency or unwholesome char- 

 acter, the equilibrium of health may become disturbed. (See 

 article on watering.) 



A loss of vital resistance may also be the result of expos- 

 ure. It has been observed that cattle which have been housed 

 regularly have escaped the attacks of this malady, and that 

 when suffered to run at large, they were frequently seized with 

 it.* Therefore we may conclude that the indirect causes of 

 milk sickness, or trembles, are any thing that disturbs the gen- 

 eral health. 



Now let us suppose that one, or a combination of the pre- 

 ceding causes, has operated so as to produce an abnormal state 

 in the system of a cow. She is then suffered to remain in the 

 unhealthy district during the night. While there, exposed to 

 the emanations from the soil, she requires the whole force of 



* Loss or Stock. — From every part of the country we hear of j^reat 

 loss of stock, principally cattle. The long-continued rainy weather, with 

 lack of feed and shelter, has been the cause of much safFering on the 

 part of poor dumb animals, and great loss to the stock-growers generally 

 throughout the Willamette valley. How long will this plan of raising 

 stock, without shelter from the cold blasts of winter, and without food, be 

 continued in Oregon ? Not long, we think, should each succeeding win- 

 ter be like the past. When, in a number of the Farmer, last fall, we ex- 

 pressed a desire to see the wintering of stock without shelter classed as 

 " cruelty to animals," we little thought it an attempt to shield them from 

 so very severe an ordeal as many were compelled to pass through. We 

 have been informed, that in some sections, nearly or quite one-fourth of 

 the cattle had died in the last two months, the greater portion cows. 

 The grass being quite short in the fall, stock was generally poor, and thus, 

 with but little feed through the winter, and in many cases no shelter 

 whatever, as the time approached for cows to " come in," their strength 

 was gone and could not be regained. 



Had many stock-raisers, last fall, sold half their stock, and with that 

 money provided suflBcient shelter for the remaining half, dollars would 

 have been saved. Where stock is well protected from the cold and wet, 

 they require much less food, and there is economy in it. We trust to see 

 tlie d^y in Oregon when our stock will be so improved that the same in- 

 vestment will be fed in half the number of mouths that are now fed. — 

 Oregon Farmer. 



