The Rot in Sheep. 
breeds of little or no worth. The grass on two-thirds of many 
of these farms has also no feeding properties whatever. The 
hay-making system contributes to the continuance of this sad 
state of things, and ever must while the produce of six or 
seven acres is annually carted off the farm into London to bring 
back manure enough for one. 
Let these farms, however, be effectually under-drained, let the 
impoverished meadows be moderately limed to begin with, let 
them be subsequently dressed with well-selected artificial manure 
— and thus made fit for the keeping of better sheep and for the 
profitable feeding of them with cake and corn — and soon the 
whole district will wear an altered appearance, and rot be almost 
unknown. 
We cite this condition of a neighbourhood with which we are 
most familiar, as an example only of what we daily see in our 
professional travels, and it is not too much to say that were good 
drainage generally adopted thousands of sheep whose lives are 
yearly sacrificed to rot and other diseases would be saved to the 
benefit of the community. 
Parkinson has a case so much to the point that we transcribe 
it. He says : — 
" The very farm on which I was horn, at Abey Grange, Lincolnshire, was 
deemed so rotten that the oldest inhabitants advised my father, when he took 
it, not to keep sheep, but to breed horses and cattle. The greatest portion 
was a poor, sour, hungry clay, so tenacious as to hold water in most parts 
like lead ; but when drained properly with open drains, I question if there 
was a sounder farm in the kingdom. I acted as sliepherd four years, and as 
we killed our own mutton, I officiated as butcher during that time, and also 
for four years alter, but do not remember seeing a single fluke in any one 
liver. Even during the year when nearly all the sheep in the neighbourhood 
were rotten, my father lost but seven out of about four hundred on that farm. 
Therefore it appears certain, that were lands properly drained, they would 
seldom produce the rot in sheep ; for though water of itself will not occasion 
the disease, yet on over-moist lands something is bred that will." 
It will be observed that Parkinson alludes to open drains, a 
system now rightly exploded. The allusion, however, is valu- 
able, because if by so imperfect a plan of drainage much benefit 
was produced, none can doubt that, by a more perfect system, 
the gain would be far greater to the occupier. In another 
place we are told that these open drains were often made 2 feet 
wide and 14 inches deep, so that the loss of land alone must 
have been considerable. 
We may now pass to the other grand principle in preventing 
this disease, namely, that of destroying the immature forms of the 
fluke after they have entered the stomachs of the sheep. This 
brings us again to the question of the administration of salt as 
an effectual agent for this purpose. Its combination with sulphate 
of iron and aniseed will materially increase its prophylactic 
