298 Experience!^ of the Severe Winter of 1890-91. 
the stock owner. The seed layers have been heavily stocked, 
and so made no progress, whilst the scarcity of keep necessitated 
the stocking of the mowing grounds with ewes and lambs. It 
is not in accordance with precedent to be able to gather an 
average crop of hay from land that has been eaten bare till May 
Day, and we have seldom known hay of good quality to be 
secured after midsummer. 
In sheltered situations brood mares, though wintered out 
of doors, have done well. Where liberally supplied with 
nutritious food they have maintained their condition and have 
come through in a healthy state. The foals are dropping strong, 
and the mares have a good supply of milk. The young stock of 
different ages are housed at night in boxes with open yards, and 
they are allowed a run in the fields during the day. They are 
fed morning and evening in the boxes with oats and hay cliaf!', 
and have a supply of water always at command. 
We have already hinted that certain diseases which affect 
the health of farm stock are more prevalent in dry than in wet 
seasons, whereas the diseases most prevalent in a wet season 
are less common in a dry one. During the winter of 1890-91 
the mortality amongst every description of breeding stock was 
heavy, though this to a great extent was due to preventable 
causes. There is a disease well known to the veterinary practi- 
tioner as septica3mia, or blood poisoning, from the admission 
into the blood of some of the organisms which abound in putrid 
solutions. The parturient septica3mia is the most common and 
fatal, and it was from this that stock owners suffered dui-ing the 
winter. It generally appears within a week of parturition, and 
is due to local contagion conveyed by the hand of the operator 
in difficult cases of parturition, or is acquired when the aiiimal 
lies down in a shed or box in which the germs of the disease 
exist. Putrefactive decomposition, involving the uterus, pro- 
ceeds rapidly. When taken in time, it is readily amenable 
to skilful treatment. Unfortunately, the disease is generally 
too far advanced by the time the veterinary surgeon is 
called in. Candour compels me to admit that the means of 
prevention rest chiefly with the farmer. If, in the lambing 
yard, the calving boxes, which are used alteniately for cows and 
mares, are not cleaned out for weeks, decomposing animal 
matter, already charged with the germs of the disease, forms a 
suitable host for the increase and nourishment of the special 
organisms. The disease is highly contagious, and whether it 
be lambing ewes, calving cows, or valuable breeding mares, they 
seldom escape. If the sheds and boxes were carefully cleaned 
