Farming of CumherJand. 



259 



The aged horse ranks equal with the three- jear-okl, and the 

 aged cow with the three-year-old heifer. There may be trifling 

 variations, but the above is the usual rate of proportion of 

 charging for the summer grass. 



If any young cattle are grazed at home it is usual to keep the 

 best and to send out the worst to grass, so that there commonly 

 assembles on the agistment ground a lean and ragged crew. 



Pastures which graze part of the owner's cattle along with the 

 rest are usually well regulated as to number and attendance, and 

 the stock go off in good condition. Such as are entirely depas- 

 tured with agisted goods are too often over-stocked, so long as 

 people are simple enough to send to them. 



There are no diseases among cattle peculiar to the county. 

 Some localities, indeed, are more liable than others to certain 

 complaints, but even these exceptions seem gradually wearing out. 



On the writer's commencing farming he was cautioned against 

 buying cattle from Threlkeld or the Abbey Holme, on account 

 of their reputed liability to common red-water upon removing to 

 other pastures. At that time the Threlkeld people with their 

 cattle were hustled to a side at the fairs at Keswick, and were 

 not allowed to pass off their cattle of ill repute for the breed of 

 other dales. The old charge against both of these districts is 

 now entirely removed, and their cattle mix wdth others ou strange 

 pastures, and are not more susceptible of disease than the rest. 



Acute red-water* is rare in its visitations, but its attacks are 

 very fatal, and apparently incurable. On hundreds of farms it 

 has never been known, and but a very small number have ever 

 felt its effects. 



The county has had its proportion of murrain and pleuro- 

 pneumonia during their seasons of prevalence, but they are now 

 seldom heard of, and if they occur it is usually in a milder form. 



The cattle in some mountain vales are liable to an affection of 

 the stomach, provincially called " crobbek " or " crovek," exhi- 

 bited in a fondness for chewing bones, leather, and clothes. If 

 this disease is suffered to go on unchecked, the bones of the legs 

 make a rattling noise in walking, the joints swell, the animal 

 loses its appetite, and spends its time in hunting round the field 

 for bones, tScc, instead of depasturing and ruminating, and even- 

 tually dies. A change to rich keeping for a few wrecks in the 

 earlier stages is the ordinary and effectual cure. It is remarkable 

 that limed land is not liable to this disease. 



The services of a skilful native cattle-dentist t have been much 

 in request of late years, and appear to be more appreciated as the 



* In 1S4S the writer lost eight in one fortnight of July, and at the same season 

 in 1849 seven more, being all that were attacked in both years. These -vrere the 

 only visitations remembered on that farm. 



t Henry Douglas of Cockermouth. 



