ee A Se ERA aN A A AA TS 
| ularis. 
142 ALPINE-BROOK. 
appearance, as reported to me from every quar- 
ter where I have been able to institute inquiries, 
is a better proof of the capacity of Andes sheep to 
adapt themselves to our climate than any further 
arguments or elucidations which I could adduce.” 
The animals, too, would obviously thrive far bet- 
ter when enjoying liberty on the mountains, than 
when imprisoned in caravans, in zoological gar- 
dens, and in gentlemen’s parks; they could sus- 
tain themselves on the coarsest herbage, such as 
the ycho of their native cordilleras; they would, 
in not a few situations in Great Britain, live and 
prosper where sheep would famish and die; they 
most probably would escape all the accidents from 
snow-storms, and most of the attacks from disease 
to which our sheep are liable; and, from the sin- 
gular richness of their wool, and the smartly in- 
creasing demand for it which follows the intro- 
duction of fair specimens to the market, they 
would not improbably, on even lowland farms or 
| on costly pastures, yield a more profitable return 
than sheep. See article Woonr—7Zhe Pictorial 
| Museum of Animated Nature—The Naturalist’s 
| Inbrary.— Voyage of the Beagle.—Mr. W. Walton’s 
| Memoir on Peruvian Sheep as quoted in John- 
son’s Farmer's Hneyclopedia.—Portraits and Spe- 
cumens in the Highland Society’s Museum. 
ALPINE-BROOK,—botanically Saxifraga Riv- 
A small, evergreen herbaceous plant, of 
the same genus as the universally known WVone- 
so-preity. It grows wild on some of the loftiest 
of the Scottish mountains. 
ALSINE,—popularly Cutckwerp. A genus-of 
annual weeds of the clove tribe. They grow 
about a foot high, and flower in July. Three 
species are known in Britain, and three are un- 
| known; and one of the former is a native of 
British fields, the second is a native of France, 
| and the third is a native of the south of Europe. 
ALSTR@IMERIA. <A genus of superb South 
Atnerican plants of the amaryllis tribe. Five 
| species are cultivated in Great Britain; and nine 
other known species have not been introduced. 
Three of our species are ornamental, bulbous, 
greenhouse plants; one—the striped-flowered, 
Alstremeria ligtu—produces useful fruit; and 
one— Alstremeria salsilla or ovata—a twining 
| plant, cultivated in Peru and the West Indies for 
its eatable roots, and recently recommended to 
the attention of British farmers for the similar- 
ity of its produce to potatoes, is shown in Plate 
XA VIT., and more fully noticed in article Liny. 
ALTERATIVES. Medicines designed to effect 
a slow salutary change in a diseased condition of 
horses or cattle, without interfering with their 
| food or work, or exciting any sensible evacuation. 
But by conventional usage, alteratives have come 
to mean only such medicines as are designed to 
remove diseases of the skin, the digestive organs, 
or the circulation; and, in a shamefully large 
| proportion of instances in actual practice, they 
| mean drugs of all sorts which are prescribed by 
empiricism or administered by well-meaning but | 
ALTHAA FRUTEX. 
culpable ignorance. Alteratives appear.to have 
become a sanction for all sorts of slow-dosing and 
general physicking, and ought either to be rigidly 
defined or totally abolished. Common sense re- 
quires that when an animal is unwell, the precise | 
disease under which it suffers should be ascer- 
tained, and a precise and expeditious remedy 
applied. If the illness of a horse be a disease of 
the skin, let nitre, sulphur, and black antimony 
be used; if there be any tendency to grease, let 
some resin be added to each ball; and if there 
be accompanying weakness, let a little gentian 
and ginger be added; but, be the case what it 
may, let not the delusion of alterative treatment 
be permitted to prescribe the use of any form of 
mercury, or of any of the heating spices, the min- 
eral acids, or the mineral tonics.—If a cow is 
unwell, let her be bled or physicked according to 
the exact nature of her disease, but let not her 
digestion be nauseated or her constitution ruined 
by a constant dosing with various drugs. “To 
a cow with yellows or mange,” says Mr. Youatt, 
“or that cannot be made to acquire condition, | 
or where the milk is diminishing, small quanti- 
ties of medicine are often administered under the 
tempting but deceptive term of alteratives. They 
had much better be let alone in the majority of 
cases. 
cattle is far more connected with a diseased state 
of their complicated stomachs, and particularly 
with obstruction in their manyplies, than with 
any other cause; the alteratives then should be 
small quantities of purgatives with aromatics, as | 
epsom salt or sulphur with ginger, or, what would 
be still preferable, rock salt in the manger for 
them to lick, or common salt mingled with their | 
food. There can, however, be no doubt that, in 
many cutaneous affections, and especially where 
mange is suspected, alterative medicines will | 
be very beneficial. They should be composed of 
AKthiop’s mineral, nitre, and sulphur, in the pro- 
portion of one, two, and four, and in daily doses 
of from half-an-ounce to an ounce.” 
ALTERNATE HUSBANDRY. The system of | 
farm management which alternates land between 
grass and tillage; so as to have part of a farm in 
sward, and part clear of all herbage except the 
tillage crop. This system changes any field or 
series of fields from grass to tillage, or from tillage 
to grass, as the nature of the land or the compa- 
rative profits of grazing and tillage husbandry 
require ; and, in many situations, it is more re- 
munerating, less laborious, and keeps lands freer 
from weeds, and from the risk of manurial ex- 
haustion, than the system of a constant rotation 
of tillage crops or of mere occasional summer 
fallowing. See articles Huspanpry, Rorarion, 
and GRASSES. 
ALTHAA. See 
HOCK. 
ALTHAA FRUTEX or Syrian Maittow,— 
botanically Hibiscus Syriacus. A hardy shrub of 
the Hibiscus kind, and Mallow family. It is a 
MarsumMatLow and Houty- 
The want of condition and thriving in | 
