MORTALITY AMONG THE EWES OF A FLOCK OF SHEEP. 671 
stayed.” We fancied the ewes must obtain something poisonous 
from the herbage, and the only place they could get any thing dif- 
ferent from the other sheep was in the orchards, since there the 
ewes went at the lambing time, and occasionally through the sum- 
mer. But so they had done for years before, and yet contracted 
no disease. Well, then ! the orchards were the suspected spots, 
and it was deemed expedient to request Mr. Bartlett, a botanist, 
from Plymouth, to make a careful examination of the orchards, 
and give us his opinion thereon. The following is the substance 
of his report : — 
The part of the estate to which the sheep unfortunately had 
access, where the predisposing causes of disease prevailed, was an 
orchard, planted in about the middle of one of our Devonshire 
valleys, having a gradual slope of about three-quarters of a mile 
in extent, from the high ground to the bed of the river, ranging 
about east and west; the hills on each side being constituted of 
argillaceous strata of laminated slate, which, although having an 
angle of inclination favouring drainage on the slopes, yet in the 
valleys often became flat or horizontal, and on which also accumu- 
late the clays and masses of rock, in detached blocks, often to the 
depth of twenty feet ; a state of things which gives the valley 
surface and soil a very rugged and unequal outline, the whole, at 
the same time, offering the greatest obstruction to regular drainage. 
These are the spots selected for orchard draining in this county ; 
the truth being lost sight of, that surfaces and soil for apple-tree 
growth require the most perfect admixture with atmospheric ele- 
ments, and the freest outlet for the otherwise accumulating moisture, 
to prevent dampness and acidity, the result of the shade of the 
tree itself, produced by the fall of the leaf, &c. 
On this estate these things had never been dreamt of before 
planting the orchards. The apple-tree, in short, as soon as its 
branches and leaves spread with the morbid growth of a dozen 
years, aids itself in the destructive process ; the soil becomes 
yearly more poisonous, the roots soon decay, and the tree falls to 
one side, as we witness daily, while the herbage beneath and 
around becomes daily more unfit to sustain animal life. Numerous 
forms of poisonous fungi, microscopic and otherwise, are here at 
home, and nourished by the carburetted and other forms of hydro- 
gen gas hourly engendered and saturating the soil; while on the 
dampest spots the less noxious portions of such hydrates are assi- 
milated by the mint plant in the shape of oil ; and which disputes 
with sour, poisonous, and blossomless grasses for the occupancy of 
the surface, mingled with the still more noxious straggling forms of 
the elliusa, occasionally the angelica, vison, conium, &c. 
This state of things, brought into existence by this wretched and 
