284 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[August, 
offered Iris entire flock, except the lambs, for 
sale, which sale took place on the 10th of July 
last year, and the lambs were sold on the 20th 
of June, this year, and thus this worthily famous 
flock was dispersed. 
Ram-Letting— The system of ram-letting 
has been followed with great success in Eng¬ 
land, offering, as it does, great advantages both 
to the owner and hirer:—To the owner, because 
he does not lose the services of rams, whose 
good points he may wish to perpetuate in his 
flock, while at the same time he is well paid for 
their services; to those who hire, because they 
are thus enabled not only to gain, at reasonable 
cost, infusion of new blood, but they may se¬ 
lect, from among many, those possessing such 
points as their own flocks may be deficient in, 
and so, in consecutive years, very greatly im¬ 
prove their flocks in all desirable particulars. 
This system has never been pursued to any con¬ 
siderable extent in this country, but we are 
gratified to know that at the approaching sale 
of rams and ewes advertised by Mr. Taylor, of 
Holmdel, N. J., this is to be a prominent feature. 
Mr. T. has a number of rams of such excellent 
points, and of such noted parentage, that he is 
unwilling to offer them for sale at present, but 
proposes to let them for the season. 
THE FARM AND FLOCK OF MR. J. C. TAYLOR. 
This flock gained a wide celebrity after the 
Babraham sale, last year, from the fact that Mr. 
T. became the purchaser of several of the best 
animals of the herd, and particularly of one, 
the best ram of Mr. Webb’s flock, “ No. 89,” for 
which, as we reported at the time, the great 
price of 260 guineas, or $1,300, was paid. It is 
well known that Mr. Taylor has for years been 
the owner of a most excellent flock of South- 
downs, which, year after year, he has been im¬ 
proving by introducing the best blood of Mr. 
Webb’s flock. His own sales have been quietly 
made chiefly to California, and distant parts of 
the country. In fact, up to the time of his own 
purchase of the $1,300 ram, he had sold one for 
the highest price that had ever been paid 
for a sheep, ($1,000). We found his large flock of 
sheep in most excellent condition, and more than 
answering our expectations. There are but few 
which are not of the Webb South-downs, either 
imported animals, or their descendants, and 
showing great uniformity in size and general 
character. The sheep enjoy excellent pastures, 
good sheds, and careful watching and attention, 
hut there is not the least attempt at show about 
the flock or the farm. 
Holmdel is situated in the county of Mon¬ 
mouth, N. J., in the northern part of the green¬ 
sand-marl formation, and this wonderful fertili¬ 
zer underlies the whole of Mr. Taylor’s farm. 
A stream passing through it, exposes the deep 
beds on either bank, while a good part of the 
bed of the stream seems to lie in the same de¬ 
posit, the very pebbles of the brook being the 
belemnites and shells of the marl. With this 
manure always at hand, in condition to be im¬ 
mediately applied, free from weed seed, good 
for any crop, and requiring no especial care in 
the application, it is no wonder that this portion 
of New-Jersey teems with fertility. We must 
say, however, that it leads people to neglect 
other manures, and the piles of corn-stalks and 
other material for composts, unused upon the 
farms, look badly to the eye schooled to regard 
this as evidence of negligent farming. There 
are a good many lambs raised here for the New- 
York market, and since the introduction of 
South-downs, and the use of bucks crossed upon 
common e\v es, the lambs are much sought after 
at high prices. Mr. Taylor’s neighbors, however 
incredulous at first, now unite in placing veiy 
high estimation upon this breed, and they would 
be very loth to part with the use of the rams. 
The offer of several of the very choicest of 
his lambs, to be sold at his approaching sale— 
one only, which he considers the best, being re¬ 
served—is, we are sure, after seeing the stock, 
bona-fide; and we consider it due to our readers 
to say, that the opportunity is one the like of 
which has never been offered in this country to 
obtain sheep of this breed, and indeed better 
South-downs can not be bought anywhere in the 
world. Many sheep of Mr. Taylor’s own rais¬ 
ing are fully equal, and in some cases superior 
to the imported stock, except in the case of one 
or two of the Webb bucks, which seem as near 
perfection as a sheep can come. It is very in- 
teresting-to compare the present perfection of 
the South down with the form considered excel¬ 
lent in animals of this breed a few years ago, to 
see how the chest is deepened, the girth expand¬ 
ed, the loins widened, the length gained in the 
rump, the gain in the neck, the breadth of the 
back, etc. So gratified were we, that we esteem 
it a privilege to commend this noble breed and 
Mr. Taylor’s sale to the attention of our readers. 
“ Pleuro-pneumonia,” or Lung Murrain in 
Neat Cattle. 
This disease, at present unknown at the 
West, with us at the East is so far naturalized 
that we believe it may break out in almost any 
herd situated on any important thoroughfare, 
or in which there are working cattle which go 
upon the highway. Still there is as yet but very 
little of it. The vigorous measures pursued in 
Massachusetts and other New-England States, 
to a certain extent checked the evil, and the ex¬ 
istence of the disease at other points along the 
sea-board where ship cows have been bought, 
though frequently recognized, has not given rise 
to extensive disaster. We have no doubt the 
disease may be suppressed, wherever it breaks 
out, by the perfect isolation of the herd, and the 
slaughter of every animal of it; not as was done 
in Massachusetts, killing and burying every ani¬ 
mal ; but by putting the cattle under treatment 
until they are cured and fattened, when they may 
be slaughtered; the flesh will be good food, and 
the hides good leather, and no danger need be 
apprehended to other stock, after the barns and 
stalls have been thoroughly whitewashed and 
limed, and aired for some time. We saw the 
disease as it existed in Massachusetts, and were 
fully convinced of its intensely contagious na¬ 
ture. The fact that of the hundreds of cattle 
slaughtered in North Brookfield and vicinity, 
there was not a single case where the contagion 
could not be traced directly to the imported 
Dutch cow of Mr. Chenery’s herd which arrived 
sick, is abundant evidence;—that is, directly to 
that cow through several others by which the 
disease was conveyed. And again the fact that 
at a certain house-moving in that town, where 24 
yokes of cattle were used in one “ string,” one 
pair of these, having contracted the disease from 
a calf brought from the originally infected herd, 
though not showing it, still communicated 
the disease to every one of the 23 other yokes, 
not a single one of them all being found which 
did not give evidence of the murrain. 
The disease exists in Brooklyn, N. Y., and in 
New-Jersey, and in some places on the Hudson 
River where cows from the distillery stables have 
been taken. Vigorous means need to be taken 
to control it. The States should act, and so 
should individuals. It is a great crime to sell 
an animal supposed to be infected, or to keep 
such a fact or supposition secret. We need ed¬ 
ucated veterinarians. A few are in this country; 
however there are hundreds of quacks to one 
■who knows his business. 
In a paper which discussed this subject in 
“Wilkes’ Spirit of the Times,” by Louis Brandt, 
veterinary surgeon, we find the following de¬ 
scription, which accords well with our own ob¬ 
servation and knowledge of the disease. 
SYMPTOMS OF THE DISEASE. 
“In localities in which the disease has never ex¬ 
isted, veterinary surgeons themselves can be con¬ 
vinced of its presence only by dissection. 
“1. The evolution of the disease, in the first period, 
is so secret and feverless, that only a practised eye 
can detect its presence. The first observable symp¬ 
tom is, a short, dry, weak cough, or hic-cough, gen¬ 
erally without repetition, which, in the beginning, 
occurs but seldom, and then when the animal rises 
or is watered, but afterwards more frequently, and 
accompanied by great pain and effort, a remarkable 
crooking of the back, a stretching of the head and 
neelc, and a quaking motion of the flanks, the cough 
becoming more and more hollow and dry; more¬ 
over, a slight feverish motion, frequent changes in 
the temperature of the horns and ears, the muzzle 
now dry, now moist, bristling of the hair along the 
back, often a greater sensitiveness when the same 
is pressed, and sometimes a somewhat excited pulse. 
“In this period we find, on dissection, firm and in- 
crassated spots of a darker red, and of various 
sizes upon the generally pale and flabby lungs, and 
afterwards an effusion of yellow lymph around 
them in the cellular tissue, lying between the lobes 
of the lungs. In this period, the disease, when 
properly treated, is almost always curable. 
“ 2. In the second period, the appearances are: a 
feverish affliction of the whole body; an accelerat¬ 
ed, difficult and unequal breathing, with expanded 
nostrils, and a violent motion of the flanks; a 
short, hollow, incomplete, and even suppressed 
cough; pain on pressing the breast behind the 
shoulders; continued standing with stretched head 
and neck, lying down only now and then, and for 
only a short time, and generally upon the diseased 
side, with the feet turned under the body, and the 
head and neck stretched out; reddened mucous 
membranes ; dry muzzle ; warm horns and ears ; 
delayed, dry, ball-shaped, painful excrements; en¬ 
tire loss of milk. 
“ Dissection.—In this developed state of the dis¬ 
ease, the affected lung appears hard, firm, enlarged, 
heavy, can not be inflated, sinks in water, is covered 
with lymph from one-half to one inch in thickness, 
and when cut through looks like marble. The 
pleura and the lungs are covered with false mem¬ 
branes of different thicknesses and different forms, 
and commonly adhesions between the lungs and 
the ribs have taken place. Iu the thorax a dis¬ 
charge of yellowish, cloudy water, intermixed with 
flakes and strings, is found in various quantities, 
sometimes a pailful. A suppuration seldom appears, 
except in case of a previous inflammation of the 
lungs. 
“ In the first period, by proper treatment, a cure 
can be effected with a loss of scarcely five per cent. 
of deaths, but, in the second, the best surgeon will 
scarcely succeed in curing five per cent.; whence it 
follows, that if the owners are unable to cure the 
disease themselves, they should seek competent as¬ 
sistance in the earliest stages. There is no infec¬ 
tious disease that spreads so easily as this disease 
of the lungs, so that those who attend to animals 
thus infected should not go into a healthy stable. 
The air which remains in the clothes is sufficient, 
even after an interval of several days, to spread the 
disease in other stables. Even the surgeon who 
has been in an infected stable, should not go into a 
healthy one, without first having himself fumigated 
with chlorine or tar. Horses are not liable to be 
infected. It is even advisable, and beneficial to the 
diseased animals, to put horses in the same stable, 
for it renders their cure so much the easier.” 
