335 
stomach and bowels may be performed in a natural 
manner. The principle is the same as that of the 
practice alluded to in the Third Lecture, of giving 
chopped straw with barley. 
In washing sheep, the use of water containing 
carbonate of lime should be avoided ; for this sub- 
stance decomposes the yolk of the wool, which is 
an animal soap, the natural defence of the wool ; 
and wool often washed in calcareous water, becomes 
rough and more brittle. The finest wool, such as 
that of the Spanish and Saxon sheep, is most abun- 
dant in yolk. M. Vauquelin has analysed several 
different species of yolk, and has found the princi- 
pal part of all of them a soap, with a basis of 
potassa, (i. e . a compound of oily matter and 
potassa,) with a little oily matter in excess. He 
has found in them, likewise, a notable quantity of 
acetate of potassa, and minute quantities of car- 
“ Anthoxanthum odoratum , sweet-scented vernal grass. Horses, 
oxen, and sheep eat this grass ; though in pastures where it is 
combined with the meadow fox-tail, and white clover, cock’s- 
foot, rough-stalked meadow, it is left untouched, from which it 
would seem unpalatable to cattle. Mr. Grant, of Leighton, laid 
down one half a field of a considerable extent with this grass, 
combined with white clover. The other half of the field with 
fox-tail and red clover. The sheep would not touch the sweet- 
scented vernal, but kept constantly upon the fox-tail. The 
writer of this saw the field when the grasses were in the highest 
state of perfection ; and hardly any thing could be more satis- 
factory. Equal quantities of the seeds of white clover were 
sown with each of the grasses ; but from the dwarf nature of 
the sweet-scented vernal grass, the clover mixed with it had 
attained to greater luxuriance than that mixed with the mea- 
dow fox-tail.” 
