NEGLECTED COMFORT, &C. OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 393 
of them ; and still farther, in the case of sheep (natives as they 
are of warm climates and elevated dry districts), that to keep them 
on cold, wet, ill-drained lands, or in close, comfortless yards, per- 
haps covered with straw super-saturated with the most foul and 
putrefying liquid matters, is a system either to be held in contempt, 
or one which is improvable by the use of the farmer’s own common 
sense and unaided exertions. As, however, better and more pro- 
fitable and practical modes of treating live stock are in many dis- 
tricts of England adopted, it may be attended with some advan- 
tage to the farmers of our islands, if I here repeat and enlarge upon 
what I have in another place had occasion to remark, namely, the 
loss which the farmers of England annually experience in the mor- 
tality of their live stock, and the influence which the neglected 
atmosphere in which that life is placed exerts in producing these, 
and other hardly less unfortunate results. 
The great amount of the annual mortality amongst domestic 
animals, from natural causes, is little known, or even suspected, 
and still less is it understood that much of this loss might be pre- 
vented by improved modes of treatment. According to Professor 
Youatt (“ Cattle,” p. 2), one-tenth of all the lambs and sheep of 
our island die annually of disease ; — of cattle, one-fifteenth of their 
number die annually by inflammatory fever and milk-fever, red- 
water, hoose, and diarrhoea. Of the great amount of property thus 
lost, few persons are aware. Of this the Professor gives the fol- 
lowing calculations : — “ 160,000 head of cattle are sold in Smith- 
field alone, without including calves, or the dead market — the 
carcasses sent up from various parts of the country. If we reckon 
this to be a tenth part of the cattle slaughtered in the United King- 
dom, it follows that 1,600,000 cattle are sent to the butcher every 
year ; and, averaging the life of the ox or the cow at five years, 
the value of British cattle, estimated at £10 per head, will be 
£80,000,000 sterling. 1,200,000 sheep, 36,000 pigs, and 18,000 
calves, are also sent to Smithfield in the course of the year ; and if 
we reckon these to be one-tenth of the whole number, and allow 
only two years as the average duration of the lives of sheep and 
pigs, and value the calves at £2.. 10s. each, the pigs at £2, and 
the sheep at £1..10s., we shall arrive at the additional sum of 
nearly £40,000,000 : so that we may safely compute the actual 
value of cattle, sheep, and swine, to be nearly £120,000,000 
sterling.” 
If, therefore, l-15th of all the cattle of England are annually 
lost by disease, more than £5,000,000 worth of cattle thus perish 
every year ; and with these also die of disease about £3,500,000 
worth of sheep. 
“ No general fact appears better established in hippo-pathology,” 
VOL. XVIII. 3 H 
