806 
[ Assembly 
dividuals. Judge Campbell commenced a suit at law against him for 
he damages he had sustained. The ablest counsel were employed 
upon both sides. Our whole community was excited, and took a deep 
interest in the subject. But the pnrties were men of too much discre¬ 
tion and good sense, to become involved in a course of litigation, from 
which both would probably be pecuniary sufferers in the end. The 
matter was therefore compromised ere it came to trial, Esq. Campbell 
receiving one hundred and fifty dollars from the defendant, and with¬ 
drawing his suit. 
163. The disease little cared about by some .—From the single case 
above recited, the foot-rot has spread extensively through this district, 
and has been common since that time, though there are some neighbor¬ 
hoods to which it has never been communicated. Some of our farmers 
suffer it to linger for years in their flocks, and do not regard it as by 
any means, so serious a calamity as it is currently deemed to be. When 
at any time their sheep become badly affected by it, they resort tem¬ 
porarily to medication, which checks it; but they do not feel it to 
be worth their while to persevere in that medication until the disease is 
entirely eradicated. The owners of sound flocks, however, are always 
sedulous in guarding them from any communication with this disease. 
Little of it exists at the present time in those of our towns where the 
greatest numbers of sheep are owned. It is much more common to the 
east of us, in Vermont; and several who in former years were accus¬ 
tomed to hire pasturage upon the mountain-sides there, have abandoned 
the practice, in consequence of finding that their flocks were so liable 
to contract this disease when sent hither. 
164. Its predisposing cause .—That this a contagious disease, com¬ 
municated by contact with the matter that has discharged from the 
sores of affected sheep, there can be no doubt; and it is surprising that 
there has been a disagreement among writers upon this subject. The 
opinion advanced by Mr. Dick, in a communication to the Edinburgh 
Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, and copied without note or comment, 
into some of our popular treatises on sheep, that the foot rot proceeds 
from sand and dirt, which insinuates itself between the crust and sole 
of the hoof, until it reaches the quick, and there excites the inflamma¬ 
tion and ulceration, which constitutes this disease, we cannot but regard 
as purely hypothetical. Why did not the sand and dirt of the Ameri¬ 
can continent sometimes insinuate itself into the soles of the native 
sheep, or the Merinos, which were so extensively introduced, fifteen 
years anterior to the arrival of the Saxons? Assuredly, if this disease 
is produced by the causes assigned by Mr. Dick, it would have been as 
