218 DISEASES OF SHEEP. 



field hurdled off, and salt scattered over it as equally as possible, and 

 in the proportion often bushels to an acre. Throe weeks afterwards 

 the sheep may be turned on it to graze, stocking the ground after the 

 rate of ten sheep to an acre ; in the meantime the field from which 

 they are taken may be brined in the same manner. When they have 

 eaten the grass quite close, they may be changed back to the other 

 plot, and so on as often as may be necessary, strewing at each change 

 five bushels of salt per acre on the pasture. The sheep will fatten 

 at a rapid rate if the disease is not too much advanced, and the dis- 

 ease will sometimes be arrested even in the worst cases. 



It must, how^ever, be confessed, that although sheep are often saved 

 from the rot by the use of salt, they have rarely been perfectly restored 

 to their former health. The taint is left; they are more disposed to 

 receive the infection from a slight cause; and, six or twelve months 

 afterwards, they frequently die of hoose or inflamed bowels : there- 

 fore, it will be the interest of the farmer to fatten them as soon as 

 possible, and sell them to the butcher. The butcher will always tell 

 by the appearance of the liver whether the sheep had at any former 

 time been rotted. In some few cases lambs have been procured from 

 ewes thus cured, but they have seldom lasted longer than one or two 

 seasons. 



SECTION XL 



THEFOOT-ROT. 



Although this disease resembles the last in name, it is altogether 

 different in character. It is not so fatal as the liver rot, but it is 

 sadly annoying: it is of very frequent occurrence, and it seems to be 

 increasing. 



It is, like the rot, peculiar to certain pastures; but there is more 

 variety in this than is found with regard to the rot. There w^e must 

 have stagnant water, and the process of evaporation going forward. 

 For the production of the foot rot we must have soft gi-ound, and it 

 does not seem much to matter how that softness comes about. In 

 the poachy and marshy meadow, in the rich and deep pasture of the 

 lawn, and in the yielding sand of the lightest soil, it cannot, perhaps, 

 be said that it is almost equally prevalent, but it is frequently found. 

 Soft and marshy ground is its peculiar abode. The native mountain 

 sheep knows nothing about it: it is when the horn has been softened 

 by being too long in contact with some rich and moist land, that the 

 animal begins to halt. This softness is connected with unnatural 

 growth of horn, and with unequal pressure; and the consequence is, 

 that some part of the foot becomes irritated and inflamed by this 

 undue pressure, or the weakened parts of the horn, too rapidly and. 

 unevenly growing, are broken off, and corroding ulcers are produced. 



