382 
Lamenesses of Sheep and Lambs. 
economical animals might be reared at the same trouble and ex- 
pense required for the production of the coarse, unsymmetrical, 
and unprofitable brutes that are still too common. Disease, dis- 
appointment, and loss might be greatly diminished by stricter 
attention to the laws of health. Of late years, indeed, many 
improvements have been made in the management of sheep, but 
we are still far short of perfection. We do not always provide 
adequate wintering fodder for our flocks, we often permit them to 
fall into miserable condition, and thus shamefully squander food, 
time, and money. We often fail to provide sufficient shelter and 
comfort. We carelessly overlook the commencement of diseases 
and thus allow them to become permanent and incurable. We 
ignorantly neglect the means of preventing disease, and supinely 
permit the ravages of many maladies that might be circumscribed. 
In 1830-31 rot is said to have destroyed 2,000,000 of sheep, and 
a quarter of a century ago was believed every year to cut off 
1,000,000, or about l-30th of the whole sheep stock of Britain.* 
The mortality from this disease, although now much reduced, 
is still very considerable, and in some seasons, as for example in 
that of last year, entails on the farmer most serious loss. Yet 
thousands of acres of low-lying undrained land, the well-known 
cause of all this mischief, still lie in their damp, cold, half- 
reclaimed state, unfit for profitable cultivation, and pregnant with 
ill health both to man and beast. Rot, however, is by no means 
the only disease directly traceable to culpable carelessness and 
mismanagement; inflammation of the bowels or braxy springs 
up from neglect to provide sufficient shelter from wet and cold, 
or from sudden changes of food. Troublesome lamenesses arise 
every day from driving sheep excessive distances. Foot-rot, the 
infringement of a simple law of health, counts its victims by 
thousands. Rheumatism stiffens and disables many a score pas- 
tured in low damp meadows. Scrofula, in its hydra forms, deci- 
mates the flock debilitated by injudicious breeding in and in. 
Useless, unprofitable, and unhealtliy stock are produced in 
thousands from ignorance or disregard of the laws which perpetu- 
ate in the progeny the characters of the parents. Such illustra- 
tions, and they might be multiplied indefinitely, clearly show that 
a large proportion of the more common and serious diseases of 
sheep are traceable to causes which might be removed by com- 
mon care and attention. Prevention is indeed comparatively 
easy, for sheep are naturally hardy and little liable to disease. 
When of healthy stock, regularly fed, kept on their native 
pastures, and moderately sheltered from wet and cold, their 
ailments are few and simple. The lamenesses of sheep, the sub- 
* Evidence before the House of Lords, 1 833 . 
