Report on Liver-Rot. 
197 
rot. But, to secure their thriving^ and prevent scouring, every 
morning between five and six tliey were penned and had hay, 
Indian meal, bran, and a little cake. This liberal treatment was 
probably the cause of their immunity from liver-rot. 
Messrs. Fry, Oldfield, Marshfield, Chippenham, responding to 
my list of printed questions, stated that they hold 458 acres, of 
which 247 are arable ; 164 acres of pasture is springy land, with 
open watercourses, and portions at times flooded ; 300 ewes and 
their lambs constitute the flock, which is kept from December to 
the end of April on roots, with hay and corn, then moved to tri- 
folium, rye-grass and vetches, and at times run on the old grass. 
Scarcely any flukes ever occurred until the fatal year of 1879. 
Towards the close of it 279 home-bred ewes were affected ; 
23 actually died, but the lambs then escaped ; 132 of them, 
however, were attacked when about twenty months old, but 
were speedily got rid of with only two deaths. The lambs 
each year have escaped, owing, Messrs. Fry sensibly suggest, to 
their being taken from the grass early in the autumn, and 
folded on roots, with hay and a portion of dry trough food. On 
the pastures much carnation-grass has grown during recent 
years. Close grazing of suspicious land in the later months of 
the year is stated to conduce to the disease. Messrs. Fry have 
not seen flukes in the livers of their cattle. The fat beasts have 
died sound, but many of the younger animals have been lean 
and starved, as if they had flukes. Messrs. Fry further remark 
that open ditches, stagnant pools, spouts or boggy places, are 
incidental to all the farms in the neighbourhood, and that all 
have been, and were then (February 22, 1881), affected with 
liver-rot. Although the owners might not care to admit it, 
Messrs. Fry state that in their parish of 10,000 acres there is 
only one sound flock. 
In the NoKTHERN English Counties liver-rot has been more 
scattered and occasional. Mr. R. W. F. Mills has recorded that a 
good deal of disease occurred on low wet lands liable to flooding, 
in the neighbourhood of York. It has also appeared on several 
farms near Rotherham. Its attacks have extended to wet land, 
whether clay, gravel, or sand, and are spread over most geological 
formations. The disease has generally been confined to sheep, 
but butchers state that since 1879 flukes have been increasingly 
frequent in the livers of cattle. On Mr. Norcliff's estate, 
Langton, near Malton, Mr. Houlden lost a colt. He was sent 
to Lord Middleton's kennels, was there examined by a veteri- 
nary surgeon, and the liver found to be full of flukes. Mr. 
George H. Sandai/, Wensley, Bedale, reported that although in 
his district of Yorkshire there is still a great deal of wet 
undrained land, only a few isolated cases of rot have occurred. 
