172 DISEASES OF CATTLE. 



progeny is sacrificed, and a fifth of the product of the dairy. With 

 careful management the proportion of breeders should approach 100 

 per cent. The various local and general obstacles to conception should 

 be carefully investigated and removed. The vigorous health which 

 comes from a sufficiently liberal diet and abundant exercise should be 

 solicited, and that comparative bloodlessness and weakness which 

 advances with undue fattening should be sedulously avoided. In bull 

 or cow which is becoming unduly fat and showing indications of sexual 

 indifference the treatment must be active. Turning out on a short pas- 

 ture where it must work hard for a living will often suffice. The bull 

 which can not be turned out to pasture may sometimes be utilized in 

 the yoke or tread power, or he may be kept a part of his time in a field 

 or paddock chained by the ring in his nose to a strong wire extending 

 from one side of the lot to the other, attached securely to two trees or 

 posts. The wire should be higher than the back of the bull, which will 

 move from end to end at frequent intervals. If he is indisposed to take 

 sufficient exercise in this way he may be safely driven. An instance of 

 the value of exercise in these incipient cases of fatty degeneration is 

 often quoted. The cow "Dodona," condemned as barren at Earl Spen- 

 cer's, was sold cheap to Jonas Webb, who had her driven by road a 

 distance of 120 miles to his farm at Wilbraham, soon after which she 

 became pregnant. In advanced cases, however, in which the fatty 

 degeneration is complete, recovery is impossible. 



In case of rigid closure of the mouth of the womb the only resort is 

 dilatation. This is far more difficult and uncertain in the cow than in 

 the mare. The neck of the womb is longer, is often tortuous in its 

 course, and its walls so approximated to each other and so rigid that it 

 may be all but impossible to follow it, and there is always danger of 

 perforating its walls and opening into the cavity of the abdomen, or 

 short of that of causing inflammation and a new rigid fibrous formation 

 which, on healing, leaves matters worse than before. The opening must 

 be carefully made with the finger, and when that has entered the womb 

 further dilatation may be secured by inserting a sponge tent or by 

 careful stretching with a mechanical dilator. (Plate xx, Fig. 6.) 



STERILITY FROM OTHER CAUSES. 



The question as to whether a bull is a sure stock-getter and whether 

 a cow is a breeder are so important that it would be wrong to pass over 

 other prominent causes of sterility. Breeding at too early an age 

 is a common source of increasing weakness of constitution which 

 has obtained in certain breeds. Jerseys have especially been made 

 the victims of this mistake, the object being to establish the highest 

 milking powers in the smallest obtainable body which will demand the 

 least material and outlay for its constant repair of waste. With suc- 

 cess in this line there has been the counterbalancing disadvantage of 

 impaired vigor, with too often lessened fertility as well as increased 



