198 
Report on Livcr-Rot. 
Mr. Mattlmo Ridley wrote (May 21, 1880), "that the disease 
is practically unknown in Northumberland;" but J/r. Thomas 
Bell, Secretary of the Newcastle Farmers' Club, later in the 
summer, recorded " that lluke disease has carried off a heavy per- 
centage of sheep in the wet district lying between North and 
South Tyne, west of Newcastle, on the borders of Cumberland." 
It is, however, reassuring that although on surrounding farms 
50 per cent, of the flocks have been destroyed, one holding 
which formerly had the worst reputation for rot has been nearly 
exempt, owing to its having been recently dried with open 
drains. Mr. Ralph Craiq, North Lytham, Belford, stated that 
although the rainfall of 1879 and 1880 has been fully an average 
in his district, no general outbreak of liver-rot has occurred. 
As usual a few cases have been met with among some of the 
Mountain Cheviot flocks, attributed to their eating the rapidly 
grown, succulent herbage around "well-heads" and springs. 
Ewes have it most frequently, owing to their getting, in most 
cases, no food except the natural herbage. More careful atten- 
tion to diet, if it does not prevent, would, Mr. Craig believes, 
mitigate the severity of liver-rot. Mr. S. P. Foster, Killhow, 
Carlisle, has heard of no flukes in his locality. The Penrith 
district is reported as perfectly sound, and all live stock par- 
ticularly healthy. 
Scotland. — At the great stock sales throughout Scotland, 
both during 1879 and 1880, sheep, as usual, have generally been 
" warranted sound," and the warrant has seldom been questioned. 
In April 1880, when in most English counties south of Trent 
not one-fourth of the sheep slaughtered were perfectly sound, 
visiting the Edinburgh abattoirs I was unable to find a fluked 
liver, and was assured by the inspectors that " they were very 
rare indeed." Butchers in the various provincial towns of 
England, as well as in London, tell me that their Scotch con- 
signments have continued free from flukes. Thousands of ewes 
and wethers brought from all parts of Scotland, and distributed 
in unusual numbers throughout the Midland and Southern 
counties to fill up the ruinous gaps there made by rot, have 
been perfectly sound. With opportunity of getting the parasite, 
however, they are as liable as English sheep to take the 
disease ; and on wet fluke-infested meadows in Leicestershire 
and elsewhere, within three months many have suffered. This 
immunity which Scotland generally has enjoyed has depended 
upon her summer rainfall of the last three years having been less 
excessive than that of England, and on her more limited area of 
flooded meadow and of old pasture. Some of the Western islands, 
receiving the copious drip from the Atlantic-born clouds, are 
seldom free from rot, and for two years have had more than usual. 
