Report on Liver-Rot. 
169 
that are here chiefly attacked ; many apparently sound one week 
are far jjone the next, and, in spite of good nursinj; and medicine, 
shortly die ; six or eig-ht are sometimes skinned in a day. Tliere 
are numbers of rabbits on this farm, many have been found 
dead, presumably from llukes ; it is not unlikely that they have 
contributed to distribute the parasites. 
Mr. Ti/ler, of Thorpe V^illa, lost 100 last year, and some 
lioggs this year. One tup lamb escaped for a day into 
a neighbour's flooded field, and three months later died full 
of flukes, whilst its fellows are still thriving and apparently 
sound. Mr. Wriglit, jun., Sandy Acre, informed me that his 
home-bred sheep, on tolerably dry upland, are sound, whilst sixty 
bought lambs, from a suspicious source, three months after pur- 
chase were dying. Richard Benskin, Loughborough, has had 
twenty-eight years' experience of butchering and farming ; 
although he has frequently looked for them, he has never seen 
flukes in young or fat lambs ; the worst and most rapidly fatal 
cases of rot, he rightly declares, are in poorly-kept sheep. Last 
spring, from a lot of fifty-seven useful stores he sold fifty to a 
farmer, not remarkable for his good keeping, in about four months 
they were sickening and dying ; the home-bred flock, amongst 
which they were run, continued sound. The seven culls sold to 
another neighbour and well fed throve and lived. Mr. J. Lacy, 
Walton, has well-drained land, uses amongst his flock a liberal 
amount of concentrated dry food, and believes that newly laid- 
down land will, if wet, rot sheep as badly as old pastures, but con- 
siders that by thorough draining even clay soils may be rendered 
free from rot. He has recently been losing a few ewes, and 
has sold others at 52s. badly fluked. He is of opinion that 
they became affected prior to his purchasing them in the 
autumn of 1879. They have since reared a capital crop of 
lambs. Henry Bordan, of Normanton-on-Soar, although carefully 
keeping his sheep off the flooded meadows, has this year lost 
several, and his beasts are now affected. To liberal supplies of 
dry food and drenching with Professor Simonds' prescription 
of salt and sulphate of iron he ascribes his light losses. 
Amongst these and many other sufferers are near neighbours, 
occupying thoroughly-drained land, who have sedulously kept 
their flocks off the wet meadows, who have been liberal with 
cake and corn, and who have hitherto kept clear of the disease. 
Mr. James Hudson, Seagrove Lodge, farming 700 acres, bought 
eleven infected black-faced ewes in 1879, lost all but two, has 
since bought another small lot, which have had to be sacrificed ; 
but his home-bred flock as yet is sound. Samuel Singlehurst, 
Kingston-on-Soar, bought six black-faced ewes, fifteen months 
ago, which died rotten; he has been especially particular with 
