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THE VETERINARIAN, APRIL 1, 1856. 
Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat. 
Cicero. 
NECESSITY OF PURE FOOD FOR CATTLE. 
There are few subjects of more practical importance to 
the agriculturist than the supplying of his cattle and sheep 
with pure and wholesome provender; for there are none 
which more immediately affect their health, as well as the well- 
doing of the animals which he intends as food for the people. 
Besides this, there are few things, standing in the relative 
position of cause and effect, which have a greater claim on 
the attention of the veterinary surgeon. Too often can he 
trace disease and death to improper, and often poisonous 
food ; an instance of which is recorded in the present number 
of our Journal. But the question has a far wider bearing 
than this, seriously affecting as it does the community at large. 
Statistics of agriculture will, in our opinion, possess only half 
their real value, if they do not embrace returns of the number 
of animals annually lost by disease, and the probable causes 
on which these depend. Hereafter we may find it necessary 
to expatiate on this part of the subject more fully ; but for 
the present we must narrow our views, and speak of the direct 
consequences of improper food being given to cattle. In the 
present improved system of husbandry, a necessity is created 
for large quantities of stock to be kept on a farm, and 
which calls for the raising of heavy root-crops from the 
land ; thus the keeping of stock and the good cultivation 
of the farm act and re-act on each other, flourishing or de- 
clining as collateral circumstances operate beneficially or 
otherwise on these primary essentials. How important, then, 
is it that these root-crops should be in a healthy state; and 
how much of this may depend on the kind of manure which 
has been employed as a dressing for the land, we at the pre- 
