POISONS. 301 



more accessible, would also, in doses of two drachms, 

 condense the inflating gases. A remedy in use among 

 farmers, but which I have never seen tried, is composed of 

 fom- ounces of lard and a, pint of well-boiled milk, poured 

 down at blood heat — half at once, and the remainder soon 

 after. Others administer a gill of urine with as much salt as 

 it will dissolve.* Some give milk with a small quantity of 

 soft soap. 



Poisons. — The effect of St. John's-Wort has been adverted 

 to at page 269. The most ordinary poison which the sheep 

 partakes of in the regions with which I am familiar, is the 

 narrow-leaved or low laurel, {Kalmia angustifoUa.) Sheep 

 unused to this plant, and driven hungry along roadsides 

 where it abounds, consume it and it acts as a virulent poison 

 on them. I never saw a sheep laboring under its effects. 

 Mr. Morrell says :^" The animal appears to be dull and 

 stupid, swells a little, and is constantly gulping a greenish 

 fluid whi<5h it swallows down ; a part of it will trickle out of 

 its mouth and discolor its lips." He adds: — "In the early 

 stages, if the greenish fluid be suffered to escape from the 

 stomach, the animal most generally recovers. To effect this, 

 gag the sheep, which may be done in this manner : Take a 

 stick of the size of your wrist and six inches long — place it 

 in the animal's mouth — tie a string to one end of it, pass it 

 over the head and down to the other end, and there make it 

 fast. The fluid will then run from the mouth as fast as 

 thrown up from the stomach. In addition to this, give 

 roasted onions and sweetened milk freely." 



Mr. GrenneUjin the Massachusetts Agricultural Report, 1860, 

 states that the broad-leaved laurel, " calico bush" or " spoon- 

 wood," {Kalmia latifoKa,) is equally fatal, and that " a far- 

 mer in 'Franklin county, Mass., lost sixty from a flock of two 

 hundred, in the fall of 1860, which strayed from a good feed 

 of aftermath grass, into an adjoining pasture, to eat laurel and 

 die." Several plants growing in our Western States are 

 thought occasionally to poison sheep, but I do not know their 

 names or the facts. Mr. Youatt enumerates among the 

 vegetable sheep poisons, the yew {Taxus baccata,) and the 

 corn-crowfoot (Ranunculus arvensis.) Mr. Spooner mentions 

 that soot, when applied as a top-dressing on wheat on which 

 sheep were soon afterwards turned, acted as a poison, pro- 

 ducing palsy of the limbs and death. 



* American Agi'ionltnrist, Vol. 3, p. 66. 



