5:28 
HOT IN SHEEP. 
be so, both in size and in the development of their generative 
system. When they first pass in, although, perhaps, in 
very considerable numbers, they simply act as a stimulus 
to the action of the liver, and consequently call forth an 
increased secretion of bile; and as there is no alteration in 
the character of the secretion, the sheep, being fairly supplied 
with an ordinary amount of food, will make relatively a 
larger quantity of blood out of such food. The liver being- 
in a state of activity, and scarcely bordering upon disease, 
the sheep will lay on a larger quantity of flesh. We have 
an authority for this in the observations of the late Mr. 
Bakewell, and since his time, as well as before, the same thing 
had been observed, but not to the same extent. I have had a 
good search through different works to find the authority 
for the statement, and in Arthur Young^s ‘ Farmer's Tour 
in the East of England,’ vol. i, he thus writes :—Relative to 
the rot in sheep, Mr. Bakewell has attended more to it than 
most men in England. He is extremely clear, from long- 
attention, that this disorder is owing solely to floods—never 
to land being wet only from rains which do not flow, nor from 
springs that rise . He conjectures that the young grass, 
which springs in consequence of a flood, is of so flashy a 
nature that it occasions this common complaint. But, whe¬ 
ther this idea is just or not, still he is clear in his facts, that 
floods (in whatever manner they act) are the cause. Perhaps 
the most curious experiment ever made in the rot of sheep 
is what he has frequently practised. When particular parcels 
of his best-bred sheep are past service, he fats them for the 
butcher, and to be sure that they shall be killed and not go 
into other hands, he rots them before he sells, which, from 
long experience, he can do at pleasure. It is only to flow a 
pasture or meadow in summer, and it invariably rots all the 
sheep that feed on it the following autumn. After the middle 
of May, water flowing over land is certain to cause rot, what¬ 
ever be the soil. He has acted thus with several of his fields, 
which without that management would never affect a sheep 
in the least; the water may flow with impunity all winter, 
and even to the end of April, but after that the above effect 
is sure to take place. Springs he asserts to be no cause of 
rotting, nor yet the grass which rises in consequence, unless 
they flow . Nor is it ever owing to the ground being very 
wet from heavy rains, unless the water floivs. This theory of 
the rot (adds Young) upon the whole appears satisfactory, 
and that part of it which is the certain result of experience 
cannot be doubted.” Speaking of watering meadows, in 
vol. iii of same work, p. 310, he says that Mr. W. White, a 
