Report on Liver-Rot. 
IGl 
the Cherwell, Evenlode, and Windrush — liver-rot has been very 
prevalent, and most disastrous. Althoujjh willing^ to assist in 
investlfi^ations relating to the cause and prevention of the 
disease, none of the sufferers seem to be in a position to give 
definite information." 
The foUowinc;- interesting letter has been forwarded from Mr. 
Henry T. James, M.R.C.V.S., Oxford : — " Flukes have been very 
prevalent in this neighbourhood. Not only have their ravages 
been great upon the wet and low lands, which are known to be sub- 
ject to rot in wet seasons, but they have appeared on lands never 
known to have been productive of the disorder. Some thousands 
of sheep have succumbed, hundreds have been saved by nutri- 
tious food, and the ewes have been able to bring forth their 
lambs, and during the summer of 1880 have done moderately 
well. In cattle, although the disease has been prevalent in 
many localites, it has not assumed such a severe form as in 
sheep, neither has it proved so fatal ; one or two in a herd have 
succumbed ; the most that I have seen together has been five in 
a herd of nearly a hundred ; those remaining are mostly im- 
proving. It does not appear that cattle are so susceptible as 
sheep. In the horse I have not seen one single instance." 
On the Oolite stone-brash, the drier land between Chadbury 
and Chipping-Norton, liver-rot has been less frequent and serious; 
but on the lower-lying meadows extending from Oxford to Ban- 
bury, and thence to Fenny Compton, great and reiterated losses 
have occurred ; while from the wetter lands by brook and river 
the flukes have extended to pasture and clover-leas, which two> 
years ago would have been regarded perfectly sound. 
Buckingham, with its large proportion of retentive clays, and 
its flat, flooded, or water-soaked meadows along the banks of 
the Ouse and Thame, has contributed a heavy quota to the losses 
from rot. Reiterated attacks of pleuro-pneumonia and foot-and- 
mouth complaint a few years ago discountenanced dairying ; 
many farmers increased their flocks ; even on the heavier land 
sheep were expected to pay the rent. Some good breeding-- 
flocks are kept, but on many of the Vale-lands the practice has 
been to buy in during spring South and West Country sheep^ 
which were generally warranted " all right," and were disposed 
of fat during summer and autumn. The Vale of Aylesbury, once 
a worthless swamp ; it has been raised to fertility by ditching 
and draining, but alas ! it is now apparently disposed to return 
to its pristine state. Around Aylesbury, on the plastic clays, to 
Wootton, Grandin, Marsh Gibbon, and across to Winslow and 
down the river-banks to Thame, whole flocks both breeding and 
dry, home-reared and bought, have been swept away. Around 
Shobbington, Ickford, and Waterperry, not only sheep but cattle 
VOL. XVII. — S. S. M 
