404 
DISEASES AMONG STOCK IN AUSTRALIA. 
drier ground till they recover the tone of their stomachs, 
and till the heat has evaporated the dews, is a good preven¬ 
tive measure, whenever it is possible to accomplish it. But 
where the disease is developed, the administration of chloride 
of lime, or a pint of milk well mixed with soot, is stated to 
be a good remedy. But the best cure is to pierce the paunch 
and let off the gas; and Mr. Meston says that, though every 
farmer in England possesses the necessary instruments to do 
this, he only met, during all his peregrinations in Australia, 
with one squatter who had them. Generally speaking, he 
says, he found that cattle were left to their fate. Poor men, 
however, with only a team or two of bullocks, cannot afford 
to be so negligent, though others, with vast herds and wide 
runs, may be careless of the fate of a score or two of their 
beasts. It is important that the knowledge of simple and 
efficacious remedies should be widely diffused among that 
class whose little all is often invested in a few cattle, and to 
whom the loss of only one animal may often be for a time at 
least the deprivation of the means of livelihood. The marsh¬ 
mallow, and what is called the Scotch burr, are stated by 
Mr. Meston to be the most dangerous weeds in producing 
this disease, especially at the time when they are flowering. 
The sharp prickly beard of a kind of barley that grows 
near Bathurst, Mr. Meston found to be occasionally fatal. 
Animals do not willingly eat it, but will do so occasionally 
when pinched by hunger, or when it gets mixed with other 
food. The prickles stick in their tongues and cheeks, and 
bring on ulcerations. 
In Wellington and Bligh, catarrh has at times proved very 
fatal. Mr. Meston ascribes it in the first instance to the 
dirty mud holes in which the sheep are yarded, then to the 
process to which they are subjected at shearing time, 
when, after being washed, they are closely packed in the 
sweating pen, then shorn and turned adrift. If a sudden 
change of temperature and very cold nights should supervene, 
the animals suffer severely from cold, and the seeds of 
catarrh are sown. Mr. Meston intimates that shelter is the 
natural preventive for this. He also points out that, in too 
manv cases, sufficient care is not taken to determine 
whether the soil of a run is best suited for cattle or sheep, or the 
quantity of stock it can fairly carry without detriment to the 
condition of the animals. Vegetation and the health of ani¬ 
mals depend, he says, more on the subsoils than on the 
superstratum. 
A kind of apoplexy, that he found had been very fatal 
among sheep near Molong, he thinks may be prevented by 
