414 UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA PUBLICATIONS 



4. There was no evidence that the locoweed produced any poisonous 

 effect, chnical or anatomical, in a single sheep during the fifty-three days of 

 this experiment. Tlie evidence indicates that the food value of the weed 

 must be very slight, but if the plant has any narcotic or other action, it is 

 so obscure that it could not be made out by careful and frequent observa- 

 tions of the animals used for this experiment. It is to be noted again that 

 no symptoms developed when the sheep eating the plant were suddenly 

 deprived of it, nor when they were returned to it after a week's abstinence; 

 and that sheep on abundant locoweed and abundant other food were the 

 ones which throve better than any others in this experiment. 



5. The sheep used in this experiment did not thrive. This applies to 

 the sheep receiving alfalfa only, as well as to those receiving loco. At the 

 beginning of the experiment the sheep and lambs were average healthy 

 specimens. At the end of the experiment the animals had either gained 

 very little or had lost weight and were evidently in much poorer shape than 

 the members of the flock from which they were selected and which had been 

 kept on the mountain side. The causes for the failure of t]jese sheep to 

 do well were probably confinement, lack of protection against the intense 

 heat of the sun, insufficient green forage, and inadequacy of food in the case 

 of those not receiving alfalfa. 



6. During the course of the experiment, sheep fly disease broke out 

 among the animals, giving everj^ appearance popularly attributed to loco 

 disease, and affecting indifferently those eating locoweed and those not 

 eating it. The animals most severely diseased were those receiving the 

 least food. 



7. The vermifuges used before 'starting the experiment did not remove 

 the Thysanosoma adinioides. 



8. In the course of this rather short experiment, no ill effects were ob- 

 served in animals deprived of salt. 



Soon after concluding the feeding experiment at Ten Mile Flat, the 

 sheep which remained were sent to the Montana Agricultural College 

 where interesting studies were made to determine whether they could be 

 profitably fattened for market. The report of the experiment has been pub- 

 lished by Linfield (Bull. No. 59, Montana Agricult. Exp. Sta., 1905). He 

 found that the sheep gained only about half as fast as healthy sheep, and 

 that it was unprofitable to prepare them for market on account of the 

 length of time and cost of the feed required to fatten them. 



From time to time during the experiment, a yearling or a lamb died, or 

 was killed, and examined at autopsy. The sheep fly larvae were found in 

 great abundance wandering over the nasal passages and up into the cavi- 



