Farming of Dorsetshire. 
389 
Fouitli. That dose folding, insufficient and improper food, 
and wiint of exercise, are jjrand causes of the disease. 
F'ifth. To sjuard ajjainst parturient fever, cidl from your flocks 
ewes after three or four fecundations, fold on gravel and sandy 
soils, use a well-sheltered night fold, the bedding of which 
plentifully strew with straw or stubble. 
Sixth. Divide the flock, the early-lambing ewes and those 
likely to have twins, and give food as before directed, viz., in 
addition to turnip and pasture feed, bruised oats, linseed cake 
with hay cliaff. 
Seventh. Let the breeder acquaint himself with purely phy- 
siological knowledge, and employ shepherds unprejudiced in old 
traditions, and I pledge myself in the statement that cases of 
parturient fever will be rarely met with. 
In compiling this Essay it has been my earnest endeavour to 
gather from every trustworthy source such particulars concerning 
parturient fever as admit of being styled matters of fact. I have 
visited the flock and fold of the sick sheep ; there have I ob- 
served and studied disease ; there have I found it in its true 
character, freed from all vagueness and illusions of systems, and 
there stripped of those false shades by which it is so frequently 
disguised in books. Observation is the basis of the informa- 
tion herein contained — and observation is the surest pledge of 
the future improvement of the brute-healing art — the surest 
pledge for the future improvement in the prevention of disease, 
and the safest guide to those who practise it. 
January, 1854. 
XV. — Farming of Dorsetshire. By Louis H. Ruegg. 
Prize Report. 
There are but few fields of observation so rich in interest and 
so varied as the geology of Dorsetshire. Other and adjoining 
counties present, it is true, more extensive ranges of formation ; 
but the ra])id occurrence of different strata, especially on the 
southern sea-board, the richness of their fossils, and the varied 
utility of their materials, invest with peculiar interest the geology 
of this county. In one particular Dorset stands conspicuous 
amongst the shires of England ; no other county possesses the 
distinction of having imported three purely provincial affixes 
into the orders of geology. Tiie Kimmeridge clay, the Portland 
oolite, and the Purbeck stone of Dorset, are the types of their 
several formations wherever these are found ; and thus three 
Dorsetshire titles have been admitted into the geology of the 
