234 
The Past Agricultural Year. 
soft and flaccid. This led in many instances to in-calf cows castinjj their 
•calves too early, and ewes their lambs. In the lambing season the weather 
varied rapidly and freqncntly between extremes of hot and cold, causing much 
fatality among ewes. Parturient fever was rife, and many ewes in good condi- 
tion, so far as quantity of flesh goes, sickened and died very suddenly, when 
the weather became suddenly warm after a spell of cold. It is probable that 
sheep were not so easily and quickly infected with liver-rot in the winter of 
1878-9 as they were in the following summer and autumn. It is to the 
astonishing spring and summer seasons of 1879 that we must attribute the 
disastrous malady from which sheep in many districts have been suffering. 
On the carboniferous limestone hills of Derbyshire, however, there are but 
isolated cases of rot, except among such sheep as were laid out to winter in 
other districts ; these are now failing with rot, and it is to be feared they will 
communicate it to tlie sound portions of the flocks to which they belong. 
In the Ashbourne district great numbers of sheep are dying, and many others 
arc doomed, while even cattle are succumbing to the same parasitic disease. 
One limestone-land farmer of my acquaintance, who last autumn sent out 
fifty hoggetts to be wintered on a -low-lying farm on another'geological forma- 
tion, has already lost more than half of them, and expects the remainder will 
die; and his exjierience is that of one among scores. The present state of 
things means wholesale ruin to many farmers. 
J. P. Sheldon. 
Derbyshire. — Hartington. 
1. Live-stock. — We have generally found after a severe winter that sheep, 
•if they have had plenty of suitable food, have been strong and healthy, and 
have brought a good crop of lambs. During the winter of 1878-9 the sheep 
were kept well, but at the lambing season, the beginning of April (though 
we had lost none of any consequence), they were exceedingly poor, and short 
of milk. I do not know how to account for their being so poor, unless it was 
the unusual severity of the winter. The fall of lambs was under the average 
both in numbers and quality. Among some of my neighbours the loss from 
scour and weakness has been very great. The ewes were generally as strong 
and healthy as could be expected, considering the lateness and wetness of 
the spring and the scarcity of food. Manj', within a few miles round, were 
starved to death through the excessive wet and cold after they were shorn. 
I am not aware that the prolonged winter and the wet spring have had any 
specially injurious effect upon the health of the horses and cattle. They have 
had none in my own case, and I have heard no special complaints from my 
neighbours. We have to be thankful that in this neighbourhood the flocks 
have escaped the liver-rot which has caused such ravages elsewhere. 
2. Tillage and Crops. — Oats are the only cereal grown about here ; and 
these turned out better than was for a long time expected. The first sown, 
about the beginning of April, especially on the leys — land that has for 
several years been laid down to grass — came up very poor and thin ; those 
which were sown about three weeks after came up better. For a long time 
we expectetl to have to cut them green, but those who waited had the satis- 
faction to find them get fairly ripe ; and the latest corn turned out best, for 
the weather was fine from the middle of October till towards the end of 
November, thereby giving us a chance of getting the corn in. 
The crops of grass were fair, but hay-harvest will not soon be forgotten. 
With some fanners it extended from the middle of July to about the end of 
October. Whoever has experienced one hay-harvest like that of 1879, will 
never wish to experience another similar to it. A deal of the hay is worse 
