Annual Report of the Consulting Botanist for 1876. 243 
food, and in particular to modify the feeding as regards the 
amount of cake and meal. This proved sufficient. Mr. Mar- 
riage, writing under date March 24th, informed me that he had 
incurred no losses among his cattle since the date of my visit. 
I may add that I examined the carcass of a pig that died 
while I was making my inquiries at the farm ; but as this 
animal had been ill previous to anything being seen amiss 
amongst the cattle, and as it showed post-mortem appearances 
sufficient to account for death from other causes, I did not 
consider this case connected with the splenic apoplexy affecting 
the cattle. 
After my visit, however, another sow was found ill, and, from 
the description given, I believe the animal was suffering from 
blood-poisoning, communicated in some way from the diseased 
cattle. 
Owing to the presence of cattle-plague in Essex at the time, 
it was scarcely to be wondered at that considerable alarm existed 
in the neigbourhood of Chelmsford when it was reported that 
twenty animals had been attacked in the short space of three 
days, and that there could be no doubt that the disease affecting 
them was cattle-plague. This report was published in the 
4 Mark Lane Express ' of March 5th, but was contradicted in 
the issue of the 12th. 
] XIII. — Annual Report of the Consulting Botanist for 1876. 
By W. Caruuthers, F.R.S. 
The past year has fortunately not been characterised by the 
appearance of vegetable blights to any serious extent in 
England. Even the potato fungus made comparatively little 
havoc, owing to the exceptionally hot and rainless summer, until 
the heavy rains of autumn supplied a suitable nidus to the para- 
site in the potatoes still in the ground. 
Several members of the Society have sought my advice in 
reference to weeds which have baffled their attempts to eradi- 
cate them. The consideration of the nature and habits of each 
particular weed has enabled me to submit methods of treatment 
which might lead to its eradication. It is impossible to give 
any general directions equally suitable to all weeds ; each must 
be treated, to a greater or less extent, in accordance with its own 
peculiarities. Thus, in the case of a clover field in Herts, which 
was in patches over-run with the stoloniferous variety of Agrostis 
alba, or creeping bent, introduced into a clean and regularly 
cropped field, probably with impure seed, it was of the first 
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