516 
Rickets, Bone Softening, and Paralysis 
lambs at their feet, ought to be located there, either on roots or 
young grass, for some years. During the first-half of gestation 
the ewes are less liable to be injured by being fed with food 
grown on these soils ; still, as it is hazardous to experiment too 
far, it is a safer policy to consume the roots grown there with a 
different class of sheep, such as may be preparing for the 
butcher. These, under any circumstances, are less liable to 
suffer damage, and are, moreover, generally receiving artificial 
food, so that they are not dependent altogether on what is pro- 
duced from the soil. When it is impossible to afford to breeding 
ewes during gestation location and food on the farm without 
the probability of this serious disease appearing in the lambs, it 
will always be an economical plan to have them removed to 
some other district during the middle and later stages of gesta- 
tion. When such an arrangement is being carried out, pre- 
ference should be given to the situation where the change will 
be as great as possible. With ewes from localities deemed 
dangerous owing to the occurrence of this disease, a satisfactory 
change is generally obtained by placing them on good clays, or 
on soils which rest on a sandstone formation. While consuming 
even roots where they have been removed, it is advantageous to 
add a small quantity of some artificial food, either cake or corn. 
On being returned to the lands from which they had been taken, 
it will still be needful to guard against grazing them on such, 
situations as are liable to induce the affection ; for although less 
liable as they get older to suffer from the paralytic attack, very 
little liberty may be taken during the first year of a lamb's life. 
In all cases where the greater portion of a farm is composed 
of the class of land already noted, care should be exercised, 
in case of contemplated improvement by ploughing and lime- 
dressing, that it be carried out in sections, at intervals suf- 
ficiently long to obviate the chance of having no portion of land 
to fall back upon as established healthy sheep-ground ; while it 
will be found better to apply the lime in small quantities 
repeated, than in larger amounts at longer intervals. Where 
the unfavourable conditions have already been developed in the 
soil before the appreciation of the disease has been awakened, it 
will be necessary to change the stock from a breeding one to 
another less liable to suffer from such a serious malady. Gra- 
dually in a few years the conditions become so altered, that a 
ewe-stock may with comparative safety be again placed upon 
the land. 
3. Summary. 
After a careful consideration of these two diseased states, par- 
ticularly in their apparent causation, we can scarcely fail to 
