92 
Murrain in €attle ( 
least necessity of peeling-. A turnep is sur¬ 
rounded with a coat or skin under the scarf skin, 
which in a common sized turnep is nearly of 
the thickness of an orange peel. This skin, in 
peeling, is often cut through, by which the tur¬ 
nep, in boiling, becomes completely water-soak¬ 
ed, and the sweetness is boiled out; it is then 
unfit for the table. A better way of cooking 
turneps or potatoes is to steam them instead of 
boiling them in water. 
But good sweet turneps, raised in a suitable 
soil, having no rank taste in them, are much 
better cooked by cutting them into small pieces 
and stewing them. While stewing, mash them 
up in the kettle, and when sufficiently done, 
take them up and dress them with a little salt 
and butter. 
Murrain in Cattle.— To many persons 
it will no doubt seem strange, to consider the 
origin the two disorders, so very different in 
their appearance, symptoms, and effects, as the 
botts and murrain, as arising from the same 
cause—namely, indigestion; but, as 1 conceive 
that they are engendered by a disordered state 
of the stomach, caused by sour and unwhole¬ 
some food, and that they might both be cured, 
or which is better, be prevented , by timely ad¬ 
ministration of a medicine, alkaline in its na¬ 
ture, I believe that reason will bear me out in 
the conclusion to which I am partly led by pe¬ 
rusing an article on this subject in the Cabinet, 
where it is said, (quoting from the American 
Farmer,) “ Some years since I purchased a 
horse, but he had the appearance of laboring 
under disease. I commenced a course of treat¬ 
ment which I had before pursued in cases simi¬ 
lar to appearance, but without effect. I was 
therefore induced to try the use of lime , as I 
was confident he was filled with botts, for he 
had discharged several. I therefore commenced 
by giving him a table-spoonful of slaked lime 
three times a week in bran mashes. After pur¬ 
suing this course near two weeks, the botts be¬ 
gan to pass away in quantities, varying from 
ten to twenty, which he would expel from his 
intestines during the night. In the mean time 
his appetite began to improve, and in six weeks 
he was one of the finest geldings I ever saw. 
From that day to this I have kept up the use of 
lime among my horses, with decided benefit; 
and, as an evidence of its good effects, I have 
not lost a horse since I began to use it. And 
lime is a certain preventive in keeping cattle 
from taking- the murrain. As an evidence of 
this fact, I have used it among my cattle three 
times a week, mixed with salt, for three or four 
years; and in that time I have not lost a single 
animal by this disease; but, in the mean time, 
some of my neighbors have lost nearly all the 
cattle they owned. But I will give a stronger 
case than even the one above mentioned. One 
of my neighbors who lost his cattle, had a friend 
living within two hundred yards of him, who 
had several cattle which ran daily with those 
that died, and his cattle all escaped. He in¬ 
formed me that he made it an invariable to give 
his cattle salt and lime every morning. I have, 
therefore, no doubt but salt and lime are a sure 
and infallible remedy for botts in horses and 
murrain in cattle.” 
And I am reminded of a circumstance by a 
friend, who has often before mentioned it. He 
had two fields of pasture near his house. On 
one of these he spread lime upon the turf to the 
amount of more than 200 bushels per acre; 
but, as the other field lay immediately below 
his cattle-yard, from whence he had formed 
drains to carry the water over its surface in the 
most complete manner, he determined to let that 
suffice for a dressing; and the effect of the high¬ 
ly impregnated water from the yard was a 
growth of grass truly astonishing. Both fields 
were kept in pasture, and when the stock had 
eaten one of them down, they were removed to 
the other, and so changed regularly about. But 
the effect of the different crops on the appear¬ 
ance of the stock, horses and cattle, is not to be 
expressed; for while feeding on the limed land 
their coats were close, shining, and healthy, and 
their spirits light and cheerful, even when they 
were obliged to labor hard to obtain a belly-full; 
but when turned into the watered grass, six 
inches o'r more in height, a difference for the 
worse could be perceived in twenty-four hours, 
and every day after they lost condition amidst 
the greatest abundance, with coats rough ana 
staring, lax in the bowels and flaccid, with dis¬ 
tended paunches, dejected countenances, and 
sluggish in their movements. But the transi¬ 
tion to health and vigor and good looks was 
quite as sudden and apparent on a return to the 
limed land. My friend adds, he never had an 
instance of the murrain or botts, while his stock 
fed on these pastures, but is satisfied he should 
have had both, but for the change to the limed 
land. 
In conclusion, I would ask, is it not fair to 
draw the following deduction from what has 
been said, namely, that all dairy pastures ought 
to be heavily limed; it being the most natural 
thing in the world to suppose that a proper se¬ 
cretion of milk, the best and most wholesome, 
depends very much on the nature of the food 
with which "the animals are fed? Ergo, lime 
your pastures, and allow your stock as much 
salt as they will consume daily, for I am con¬ 
vinced that lime and salt are a remedy for 
“ botts in horses,” as well as the murrain in 
cattle.”— Far. Cab , 
