SOME EXPERIENCES IN THE SOUTH. 
757 
I tetics on the part of many of the owners, a great many of whom 
are city men, and the greater part of the responsibility of the 
care of the live-stock being placed in the hands of the illiterate 
hostler, we have frequent instances of disease and death from 
inferior quality of food as well as over-abundant quantity I 
can recall one m which sixteen mules were affected in the kid¬ 
neys in various stages of disease, from insipid diabetes to sup¬ 
purative nephritis. Before my arrival on the plantation five 
o the animals had died, the last one of which offered the oppor¬ 
tunity for an autopsy. Each kidney weighed about six pounds 
and on section revealed in the cortical portion numerous puru- 
ent abscesses. After making a number of inquiries regarding 
e food, I found that for two months previous the animals had 
been fed peavine hay which was almost in a state of nitrifica¬ 
tion. I subjected a sample to the action of sugar solution, re¬ 
sulting in the production of butyric fermentation, which you 
all know is putrefactive fermentation. 
It might be interesting to notice here that the danger of this 
hay, which is extensively fed with us, is that if improperly har¬ 
vested and cured or subjected to moisture, as from a leaky barn- 
roof, fermentation may easily develop potassium nitrate. The 
I plant is the cow pea (dolictos sinensis ), and nitrogen predomi¬ 
nates m the peas and the leaves, while potash is most abundant 
m the stems. In harvesting the hay, if the leaves are not saved 
the loss'greatly depreciates its value as a food and increases the 
stems with a superabundance of potash and a deficiency of ni¬ 
trogen, and this excessive amount of potash in the stem of the 
vines also suggests most careful pains in curing, so as to pre¬ 
vent the development of this salt, which when continuously fed 
for a length of time, producing excessive diuresis, resulting in 
more advanced kidney derangement. It is not to be wondered 
at that such conditions as I have just alluded to did and still 
exist when we take -into account the length of time the stock¬ 
owning public, and more especially in the agricultural districts 
were in the hands and at the tender mercy of empiricism, with 
few if any in those sections competent to lend intelligent aid. 
