go6 History of the Author*! 



allotted to them in cribs; and five nights in the week they have in the house, io| 

 quarts of linseed made into jelly, with seven times as much water ; sometimes 

 alone, at other times mixed with a little chaff of hay in troughs. The two other 

 nights they have, instead of the jelly, six gallons of ground oil-cake mixed with 

 chafF in the same manner. What remains of the cabbages at night, is eaten up 

 clean in the course of the following morning. 



Salt I never gave to my flock but once, and that in the following way : A small 

 field of lattermath, cut in September, had been so often wetted, that I despaired of 

 its ever being eaten. "While it was putting into the rick, I strewed some salt 

 between the layers ; the consequence of which was, that cows and sheep greedily 

 devoured it, scarcely leaving a single blade. 



CHAPTER VII. 



Treatment cf the Diseases of the Merino-Ryeland Breed. Hydatids in the 

 Lungs. Giddiness. Foot-rot. Scab. Scouring. Hippobosca Ovina, or 

 Sheep-Tick. The Fly and Maggots. Tetanus, or locked jfaw. 



Ijet us now advert to the treatment of the chief diseases of the Merino-Ryeland 

 breed of sheep. 



For hydatids in the lungs, and the giddiness, I know of no cure. The French 

 writers think that young sheep, which are chiefly subject to the latter disease, are 

 guarded against it by not being shorn when lambs ; but Lord Somerville assures 

 me that, so far as his experience goes, this opinion is ill-founded. 



In the foot-rot, it certainly would be a proper precaution to separate, if possible, 

 the unsound from the rest of the flock, and put them on land which is drier, and 

 less deep in herbage. Experience has shewn that sheep are least liable to this 

 malady on ploughed or fallow land. It is easily cured. For this purpose, pare 

 off, with a sharp knife, so as not to make the part bleed, all the spongy and de- 

 cayed parts of the hoof and frog, and, instead of applying strong caustics, such as 

 the vitriolic acid, so as to corrode the parts, and produce a worse disease than that 

 which it was intended to remove, rub into the affected parts, every other day, a 

 little of a mixture of equal quantities of powdered sulfate and aceiite of copper. 



