194 
Report on Liver-Rot. 
materially fostered by the great quantity of the grass seen in 
wet seasons, and as a matter of course when rot is prevalent. 
This, however, is easily explained. The grass grows fast in 
wet weather and is more readily seen. Dry weather is generally 
fatal to it, or, if it grows at all, it does so very slowly. Farmers 
then, seeing so much of the grass during the prevalence of rot, 
come to the conclusion that it is the cause of the disease." 
On the low meadows in the Cowbridge district, on the reten- 
tive lias shale, draining is not sufficiently attended to ; stag- 
nant ditches, pools, and springy furrows are very common, and 
for two years rot has abounded. Colonel Picton Turbervill's 
correspondents have furnished the following information. 
William Lougldcr, Llanvethin, used hay when the weather and 
grass became indifferent in the wet autumn of 1879, found his 
sheep do fairly, but when worse weather came at Christmas thej 
died rapidly, to the number of 50 ewes and 60 lambs. Eleven 
cattle have also followed with the same symptoms ; but they 
are, he says, more easily doctored and saved than the sheep. 
Mr. Edward Thomas, Laneadle, four years ago lost 60 breed- 
ing ewes from rot. His land is not dry ; several boggy places 
occur in the pasture-fields ; he believes that in a wet season it 
grows noxious herbs which cause rot. In the winter of 1879-80 
he lost 44 ewes, although he says that he gave them rock-salt 
during the greater part of the summer and autumn, and hay 
and oats regularly twice a day from October. Edioard Jenhiiis, 
Plumark Place, considers his land generally suitable for sheep, 
with the exception of two small fields which the flock are not 
allowed to enter. Although with no previous experience of 
rot 270 sheep have been lost in 1879 and 1880. D. Spencer, 
near Cowbridge, lost 100 ewes during February and March, 
1879. Neighbours who saved theirs have not been great 
gainers, for the survivors are reported to be weak and thriftless, 
consuming much concentrated food, but making no progress. 
D. H. Davies, Eglwsbrewis, has a wet farm, on which 100 sheep 
died rotten in 1860, and 40 perished in 1879. The wet boggy 
portion of a field, he believes, did the mischief this time. Dry 
iood and salt might, he thinks, have been serviceable if adopted 
in time. John Lewes, Brigham, is satisfied that grazing sheep on 
wet meadows produces rot. His yearling sheep, restricted to 
seeds on dr}' land, are sound ; 120 breeding ewes and two-year- 
old sheep run during the autumn and winter on the meadows 
are all dead from flukes. Thorough draining, Mr. Lewis believes, 
is the only remedy for his case. 
Mr. A. B. Price, Westhouse, Bridgend, considers this visita- 
tation to be more subtile than any previously occurring. In 
November, 1879, he examined carefully all his sheep ; believed 
