118 
WARBLES. 
On February 4tli of this year (1890), Miss Lyle Smyth, of Barrow- 
more Farm, Chester, reported that (as in the preceding season):— 
“I have had my cows very successfully dressed with Dee Company’s 
Oil ” ; and further added, “hut as a matter of fact I believe McDougall’s 
Carbolic Smear is the best and cheapest stuff for the purpose.”—E. L. S. 
The work of the boys of the Aldersey Grammar School, Bunbury, 
Tarporley, Cheshire, under the superintendence of their excellent Head 
Master, Mr. W. Bailey, is still being continued with great zeal and 
success in extirpating Warbles from the neighbourhood. On May 29th 
of last year Mr. Bailey wrote me as follows, accompanying a detailed 
and tabulated report of the work of the boys during the previous 
month in destroying Warbles :— 
“You will notice that the total of stock examined is 577, and that 
no fewer than 1077 maggots have been squeezed out and destroyed, or 
killed by the applications of the ointments prepared by Messrs. 
McDougall Brothers, the Dee Oil Company, Chester, and Jeyes’ 
Sanitary Compounds Company (Limited). These firms have very 
generously supplied us with tins of their valuable preparations, and 
the effect has in the case of all the dressings been most satisfactory. 
“You will perhaps be struck with the great increase in the number 
of Warbles removed or destroyed this year as compared with those of 
previous years. It is thus explained. I granted to the boys this year 
a ‘roving commission,’ encouraging them.to inspect their neighbours’ 
cattle as well as their own, as far as practicable.” 
As Mr. Bailey says, the proportion is larger this year, but, looking 
over former returns, this confirms the use of the work. In 1885 the 
boys were shown the Warbles, told their history, and begged to bring 
what they could find; one pupil alone brought in 250, and in the 
following year, when he examined his father’s and his brother’s stock 
(numbering 114 head of cattle), he found no Warbles, excepting on 
young cattle which had not been dressed, because they were out in the 
fields. In 1887 the number of stock examined was 293; number of 
Warbles found, 104; in 1888, number examined, 515; Warbles 
found, 311. 
These examinations were of cattle belonging to the fathers or 
relatives of the boys, and while the report of last year shows absolutely 
only a very moderate presence of attack (even taking cared-for and 
uncared-for cattle together), at the same time it shows how taking a 
larger proportion of uncared-for cattle into the detail runs up the 
average at once. 
The boys have now for six years being doing good service in showing 
how a district can be cleared without more trouble than they have a 
pleasure in giving, and their work has met with the approval of their 
relatives, and of the Haberdashers’ Company, to which the Aldersey 
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