10 



The Rot in Sheep. 



white snailes which a sheep will licke up, and they will soon rot 

 him." He likewise speaks of the necessity of keeping sheep 

 from off low and moist grounds, " untill the sunne be risen, and 

 that his beames beginne to draw the dewe from the earth." In 

 another place he comments on the propriety of chasing the sheep 

 up and down the pasture, because " this chasing, first, beateth 

 away mill-dewes and all other dewes from the earth, as also the 

 webbes, kelles, and flakes, which lying on the earth, and a sheep 

 licking up, doe breed rottennesse." 



Crawshey, author of The Countryman s Instructor, 1636, says, 

 that sheep get the rot " by feeding upon ketlocks or other such 

 weeds, growing in fallow fields ; or by feeding upon short grasse, 

 on leighes or land-ends where many worme sprouts be, which 

 the sheepe feeding upon that grasse doe lick up ; also the gravell 

 wrought up by the worme, and most of all the slime that is left 

 by the wormes ingendering, which is a great cause of rottenesse." 

 He further adds, that " others get it by feeding upon low levell 

 ground, where, when a sudden raine cometh, the water standeth 

 and cannot get readily away, and the sheepe that continually 

 useth that ground will slop much water with the grasse, which 

 if the weather be cold will doe them hurt, but not so much as if 

 it be warm : many shepheards say, that if the weather be hot, 

 their sheepe will take the rot in four and twenty hours, therefore 

 carefull shepheards, as soone as they see the ground wet and the 

 day hot, will remove them with all speede into higher grounds, 

 for a space, till the water be dryed away." 



"A. S.," the anonymous author of The Husbandman *s In- 

 structor, 1697, remarks, that "in moist years sheep are subject to 

 the rot, where in dry years they are exempted from it, and that 

 not only from the moisture, for then would sheep rot in all moist 

 grounds, but there is a certain putrefaction in the air, grass, or 

 herb, or all of them, that cause it." 



Bradley, a distinguished Professor of Botany in the University 

 of Cambridge, in his Gentleman and Farmer's Guide, 1729, after 

 repeating most of the preceding statements, goes on to extend the 

 observations of Gervase Markham respecting snails and slugs, and 

 remarks that " in some pastures there are great numbers of white 

 snails and slugs, which while they are small the sheep take in 

 with the grass, and are distempered by them. The snails and 

 slugs breed about April and August, or September, so that at 

 the times when they are smallest the sheep are in most danger 

 from them. They breed for the most part in damp and shady 

 grounds, and retire from their feed (upon the grass or other 

 herbs) to their places of shelter about nine or ten in the morning, 

 if the sun shine strong ; but in wet weather they remain upon 

 the grass constantly ; so that sheep should not be turned into 

 such pastures but in fair weather, or after the dew is off the grass ; 



