Lamenesses of Sheep and Lambs. 
411 
lameness. An interval of some weeks, with a few rainy clays, 
should if possible be allowed to pass, before healthy sheep are 
placed upon the pastures previously occupied by those suffering 
from murrain. If the animals have been kept within doors, 
disinfectants must be had recourse to. Of these, the most com- 
mon is chloride of lime, or bleaching powder, which should be 
freely strewed over the floors and applied in strong solution to 
the walls and woodwork. Sulphurous acid is also a valuable 
disinfectant. It is best produced by burning sulphur on some 
red-hot coals, allowing the fumes to penetrate to all parts of the 
building. In conjunction with these disinfectants, thorough 
ventilation must not be neglected, all litter must be removed, the 
walls whitewashed, and the woodwork scrubbed. It is generally 
believed that sheep once attacked by the vesicular epizootic are 
not again subject to its attack. Second attacks are at all events 
rare. This, according to Liebig's ingenious hypothesis, results 
from the disorder removing from the blood that peculiar morbific 
matter, which is believed to be essential to the reproduction of 
the virus and the development of the disease. 
XXI. — On some Points connected with Agricultural Cliemistry. 
By J. B. LAWTiS, F.E.S., F.C.S., Rothamsted, Herts, and Dr. 
J. H. Gilbert, F.C.S. 
Ox more than one occasion we have expressed our high sense 
of the important services rendered to the furtherance of fixed 
principles in agriculture by Baron Liebig. We have particu- 
larly called attention to the fact, that the masterly review of 
the then existing knowledge on the subject contained in his 
work entitled ' Organic Chemistry in its Applicatio7is to Agri- 
culture and Physiology,^ and published in this country in 1840, 
had, more than any other circumstance, given that stimulus and 
direction to chemical inquiry, in connexion with agi'iculture, 
which has characterised the subsequent period. It was naturally 
to be expected, however, that the evidence to be derived from 
the inquiry that had thus been incited, would, in the progress of 
time, necessitate the modification or extension of the expression 
then given to the relations of science with practice. 
In his third edition, indeed, published in 1843, Baron Liebig 
himself announced, in his Preface, that he had, in the years 
which had elapsed between that edition and his first, endea- 
voured to make himself " acquainted with the condition of prac- 
tical farming, and with what it requires, by a journey through 
the agricultural districts of England and Scotland " — and also in 
that interval instituted a long series of experiments on the subject 
