AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 227 
labour would be thrown away, or which, if obtained, would be 
delusive and unjust, he will be doing much good. 
Government can do something ; — the commutation of tithes 
being effected (the present bill probably being somewhat or mate- 
rially altered in its calculations and its averages), the duty on the 
sale of landed property, and some taxes pressing particularly on the 
agriculturist being repealed. The landlord can do more, by the 
reduction of rent, in many situations at least, and to a certain 
degree ; and by regulating his rent by the price of corn, or of 
some other farm-produce. The farmer — and aided by the govern- 
ment, which to a considerable extent may readily find the means of 
doing this — the farmer may do more, by making himself better 
acquainted with those sciences which bear upon the agricultural 
pursuits ; by adopting cheaper and securer means of raising the 
produce of the ground, and securing it from many a source of 
injury, or even destruction. The veterinary surgeon may con- 
tribute to the same important end much more than the farmer 
has hitherto thought him capable of doing, and far more than 
the majority of practitioners have dreamed of his being able to 
accomplish. 
One cause of agricultural distress, and not the least, and occa- 
sionally bearing heavily indeed upon the farmer, is the mortality 
among his cattle and sheep. Few of the domesticated quadru- 
peds are suffered to die of old age ; but, says the author of “ A 
Treatise on Cattle,” in the first page of his work, “ A tenth part 
of the sheep and lambs die annually of disease, and at least 
a fifteenth part of the neat cattle are destroyed by inflammatory 
fever and milk fever, red-water, hoose and diarrhoea ; and the 
country incurs a loss of nearly ten millions of pounds annually.” 
This calculation was the result of much diligent inquiry, and 
was purposely under rather than over stated. A committee 
was appointed in 1833 to inquire into the state of agriculture 
at that time, and the following was the evidence given as to the 
ravages of one disease alone, the rot, in certainly a very bad 
winter, 1830. 
Mr. W. R. Brown, of Broad Hinton, says, that he lost 500 
sheep in four months, and that he sold 400 more at 3s. 8d. a 
piece ; so that he might be said to have lost 900 in all, out of a 
flock of 1400. 
Mr. W. Simpson says, that one of his neighbours lost all his 
sheep but three. Mr. John Buckley says that many lost all 
their flocks. Mr. John Western Peters states, that he knew some 
instances in which the farmer lost the whole of his stock, and 
bought a second stock and lost that too. 
Mr. Smallpiece asserts, that in some parts of the Wealds of 
Surrey and Sussex, where there used to be two or three thousand 
