7S6 
Foot-rot in Sheep. 
the foot-rot in his life, was placed with them, and the very next 
morning the young ram was lame, and was found to be suffering 
from foot-rot. In about two weeks the aged sheep had it also, 
and on the stranger it showed itself in the course of another 
week or so. We dressed them, curing first one and then another, 
but never getting them all three well at once. When the pur- 
chased sheep seemed all right he was removed, and put with two 
or three weaning calves until it was time to put him to the 
ewes ; neither ram nor ewes subsequently showed any symptoms 
of foot-rot. The other two rams were sold. These details must 
be very uninteresting, but they include every sheep I have pur- 
chased since 1878, except a ram lamb from Mr. Gilroy Temple, 
Laugherne, near Worcester, in the autumn of 1889, which 
brought no disease. 
Though fully prepared to get foot-rot after buying sheep, 
especially if some of them were affected with the complaint at 
the time, I hardly expected to get it through the purchase in 
1882 of a single animal, more particularly as that animal was 
not suffering from it himself. If I had not known that he was 
labouring under it some time before, my faith might have been 
shaken as to the possibility of keeping perfectly free from it, as 
up to 1878 I had never been free for a very long time together, 
through buying a few sheep now and again. As I had to wait until 
the autumn of 1886 before another case arose, what could I 
think except that it was the introduction of the fresh sheep, 
though not affected himself, and only coming out of a flock 
affected with the disease, which had given it mine ? Moreover, 
only those sheep were affected to which he was introduced, and 
no other case of foot-rot showed itself until the spring of 1889, 
after the introduction of another sheep. At the present time I 
have not on my place a single animal of my own breeding — and 
they are all so except two — which has ever had foot-rot. The 
same is true of their mothers before them, after living, breeding, 
and sometimes dying a natural death, without my having occa- 
sion even to look at their feet. I think this is strong evidence, 
whatever people may believe, that foot-rot will not arise spon- 
taneously on this particular farm, or indeed upon any of the 
three I have occupied in this neighbourhood. 
There are farmers besides myself who find they can keep 
free from this disease by not dealing in sheep, only breeding. 
They think it necessary, however, to be careful about moving 
troughs frequently and in not having the animals too thick 
upon the ground or under trees, where they lie closely and very 
frequently for shelter in the summer, or in certain low-lying 
grassy orchards or luttennath, &c. If tho least trace of disease 
