528 
SMALL-POX IN SHEEP. 
sales, and so sensibly disadvantage both the breeder and the farmer 
who keeps flocks, either for the purpose of manuring the land or for 
the butcher : neither do I dispute that this operation practised at 
the commencement or at the conclusion of pasturing, at the moment 
sheep are transferred from marshy pastures to the hills during the 
fine weather, may not operate both against the intentions and inter- 
ests of the farmer ; I do not deny but that the vicinity of mountains, 
woods, heaths, rivers, streams, from in a manner isolating the places 
in which the flocks are attacked, combined with sequestration and 
folding, are not preferable measures to inoculation ; T hesitate not 
to avow that great heat as well as great cold, the usual benignity 
of the malady in certain situations, the breed, more or less indi- 
genous, of the sheep of the flocks menaced with contagion, are not 
so many circumstances deserving to be taken into serious con- 
sideration in regard to the special interest of the farmer, as well 
as. on some occasions, of the general interests of a whole district, 
whenever this becomes a question of having recourse to inocula- 
tion. But, let me ask, what is to be done under most of the cir- 
cumstances just recited? Are we to hasten or retard inoculation, 
keeping in view conditions unfavourable, inconvenient, or onerous 
to the farmer ? And I repeat, that, if the situation be such as to 
permit conveniently of isolation of the flocks by folding or shutting 
up in the sheepcot, such measures to prevent contagion ought to 
be preferred to inoculation. Therefore it is to persons conversant 
in rural economy — therefore it is to veterinarians especially, to ap- 
preciate the advantages and disadvantages of operating immedi- 
ately, either of advancing or retarding the contemplated inocula- 
tion, as well as to judge of its suitableness or unsuitableness. 
FOURTH Objection : Expenses to be considered may be in- 
curred by inoculation in the fees of operation. — The costs of 
inoculation occasioned by honoraria to inoculators cannot, ought 
not, to run high. Under the supposition that inoculation is 
ordered and imposed on farmers by government authority, such 
charge might be fixed at so much a head. The sum of a penny 
a head is what is demanded by veterinarians under ordinary cir- 
cumstances. This was the sum that was allowed to veterinarians 
by the Prefect of the Pas-de-Calais, on the occasion of the flocks 
being either attainted or menaced with contagion, during the time 
of the epizootic pox which spread through the sheep of fifty-nine 
parishes of this province. This sum might even be reduced to 
one halfpenny a head in localities where flocks are of little value, 
very numerous, or far distant one from another. This, then, is 
sufficient to shew that the expenses of inoculation are but small, 
and cannot operate as an objection to its employment. 
