of the disease, and suggests the necessity of all 
sheep-pastures being moderately dry and duly 
aerated, not enly within the range of ordinary 
artificial draining, but down to as great a depth 
of understrata as is likely to affect the exhala- 
tions and chemical actions of the surface—A 
fourth assigned cause is superabundance of water 
taken into the system along with the food, or 
excess of liquid in the herbage of pastures, or a 
deficiency of firm, solid, and grateful properties 
in comparatively succulent herbage, surcharging 
the body with aqueous fluid, excessively dilut- 
ing the blood, and provoking an over-secretion 
of serous juices. But though an excessive pro- 
- portion of water in food may, in several respects, 
be injurious to the health of sheep, it does not 
seem of itself to be capable of producing rot ; 
for sheep who, for a time, live entirely on tur- 
nips, take in no less than nine parts of water for 
every one part they receive of solid matter, and yet 
do not in consequence become rotted. Still the 
opinion that rot arises from succulency of herb- 
age is entertained by many eminent veterina- 
rians and very experienced shepherds; and, in 
spite of being essentially incorrect, it affords 
broad and valuable hints respecting the mea- 
sures by which the true causes may be repressed. 
—Some other alleged causes are, too long indul- 
gence on flat grassy pasture which has been re- 
cently flooded,—the breathing of exhalations from 
pastures which, though naturally dry, have been 
saturated with rains and then exposed to the 
play of ardent sunshine,—and driving rapidly or 
exhaustingly or through shady lanes or along di- 
versified tracts from an upland to a lowland pas- 
ture ; and all these, as well as some others, like 
the four at which we have distinctly glanced, 
either afford some indications of the true causes, 
or show the circumstances in which they ope- 
rate, and suggest some means by which they 
may be counteracted. 
The true causes are confessedly obscure; and 
probably will not be ascertained beyond debate 
for along time to come. But one of the most 
undoubted of them—one, too, which goes far to 
explain the apparent force of most of the as- 
signed causes we have named, and which gives 
both meaning and amplification to all the hints 
suggested by these respecting the best methods 
of prevention and cure—is a dead and ferment- 
ing state of herbage, or of portions of herbage, 
on any spot or expanse of sheep-walk, which 
suffers a high action from subterraneous exhala- 
tions, from concentrated manurial matter, from 
hottish stagnant water, or from the fierce or 
killing combination of moisture in the soil and 
heat in the atmosphere. No one author whom 
we are aware of points to this cause in the exact 
light or latitude in which we represent it; yet 
several of the most eminent assign to some one 
or more phases of it either main prominence or 
exclusive place. Spooner says: “It appears to 
me, ee in addition to the consumption of food 
ROT. 
8] 
in which water greatly abounds, it is essential 
that this food should be in a state of decomposi- 
tion (partially rotten), in order to produce the 
rot, And this view of the case corresponds with 
the fact, that heat as well as moisture is neces- 
sary to cause rot, that it is not produced while 
the land is entirely under water, nor until the 
rays of the sun have acted on the grass previously 
saturated with moisture.” Youatt says:—“ The 
rot in sheep, is probably the produce of ground 
which has been lately wet, and then the surface 
exposed to the action of the air. The grass and 
other plants, previously weakened or destroyed 
by the moisture, become decomposed or rotten; 
and in that decomposition certain gases or mias- 
mata may be-developed that cannot long be 
breathed, or scarcely breathed at all, by the 
sheep without producing rot.” Hogg says:— 
“ Feeding on land which has been formerly or is 
at the time pastured by cattle, is an exciting 
cause of rot; and the rank grass of a deep green 
colour, springing from the spots on which they 
drop their dung, is likewise vastly deleterious; as 
is also that kind which rises round the borders of 
their foot marks, after being soaked with stag- 
nant water. This last cause affects, not indivi- 
duals, but whole parcels; and in general, any 
misfortune or slight disease which has for a 
while interrupted the animals thriving on all soft 
tathy pastures is almost sure of introducing the 
rot.” And Clater says :—“ Rot prevails, or rather 
is found only in boggy poachy ground. On up- 
land pasture, with a light sandy soil, it is never 
seen; and in good sound pasture in a lower situa- 
tion, it is only seen when, from an unusually wet 
season that pasture has become boggy and poachy. 
It is also proved to demonstration, that land that 
has been notoriously rotting ground, has been 
rendered perfectly sound and healthy by being 
well under drained, that is, by being made dry. 
There are hundreds of thousands of acres, on 
which a sheep, forty years ago, could not pasture 
for a day without becoming rotten, that are now 
as healthy as any in the kingdom. We can also 
tell the kind of wet ground, which will give the 
rot. Wherever the water will soon run off, there 
is no danger; but where it lies upon the surface 
of the ground, and slowly evaporates, the rot 
is certain. One part of a common shall be 
enclosed; or if it has not been drained, at 
least the hollows in which the water used to 
stand are filled up, and the surface is levelled ; 
no rot is caught there. On the other side of the 
hedge there are these marshy places, these little 
stagnant ponds, where evaporation is always go- 
ing forward, and the ground is never dry—a 
sheep cannot put his foot there without being 
rotted. These are plain palpable facts, and they 
are sufficient for the farmer’s purpose, without 
his puzzling his brains about the manner in 
which wet ground produces diseased liver.” 
The prevention of the rot is of prodigiously 
more consequence than the cure’ >}, must be 
A A A A ee Se 
