sons in possession of such sheds, places, trucks, and vehicles respectively.

IV. Every person in possession of any sheep or lambs in or among which the said disease shall manifest itself shall forthwith give notice, in writing, of the fact to the chief constable, or superintendent of police, of the county or borough in which such sheep or lambs may be.

V. And it is further ordered that this order shall continue in force for three calendar months from and after the date hereof. ARTHUR HELPS.

The following circular letter, to the justices acting at (to be sent in the meantime to all Petty Sessions in the counties of Wilts, Hants, Dorset, Somerset, and Berks), has been issued from the Treasury:"Whitehall, Sept. 11. "GENTLEMEN,-With reference to the disease now prevailing among sheep in certain districts in England, I am directed by Secretary Sir George Grey to call your immediate attention to the provisions of the Act 11th and 12th Victoria, cap. 107, sec. 1, and to the fact that the statute in question is still in operation, having been continued by subsequent Acts, and ultimately by the 21st and 22nd Victoria, cap. 22, until the 3rd of August, 1863, and the end of the then next Session; and I am to add that, in the opinion of Sir George Grey, it would be highly expedient for two of the justices of the county to appoint, without delay, a person well acquainted with the subject to attend at the markets and fairs about to be held for the sale of sheep and lambs within your county, for the purpose of executing the powers conferred upon a person so appointed by the 1st section of the Act above-mentioned.

"I am, gentlemen, your obedient servant,

"H. WADDINGTON."

The following circular letter, addressed to the Mayor of (to be sent at the present time to boroughs in the counties of Wilts, Hants, Dorset, Somerset, and Berks), has been issued from the Treasury:

"Whitehall, Sept. 11. "SIR,-With reference to the disease now prevailing among sheep in certain districts in England, I am directed by Secretary Sir George Grey to call your immediate attention to the provisions of the Act 11th and 12th Victoria, cap 107, sec. 1, and to the fact that the statute in question is still in full operation, having been continued by subsequent Acts, and ultimately by the 21st and 22nd Victoria, cap. 22, until the 3d of August, 1863, and the end of the then next Session; and I am to add that, in the opinion of Sir George Grey, it would be extremely expedient for you to appoint, without delay, a person well acquainted with the subject to attend at the markets and fairs about to be held for the sale of sheep or lambs within your borough, for the purpose of executing the powers conferred upon a person so appointed by the first section of the Act above-mentioned.

"I am, air, your obedient servant,

"H. WADDINGTON."

At a meeting held at Salisbury, Professor Simonds thus spoke to the appearance and treatment of the disease:

"Supposing a sheep were exposed to the disease, that disease would lie dormant for a period of seven, or even as much as ten days. The period of incubation cannot be said to ex. ceed over fourteen days; so that if they could isolate all their sheep for fourteen days from the others that were on their premises, after they had been exposed to the contagion, they would be able to tell whether they had sustained injury or not, While the disease is incubated in the system, the animal gives not the least indication of ill health. There is nothing about it at all to show that it is not in perfect health. No doubt, if we were to be exposed to the smallpox of man, during the time the disease was lying dormant in our system we should express ourselves perhaps somewhat ill at ease; but we could not take cognisance of these things in the sheep. This irruption was very peculiar, differing from almost every other kind of rash. It was peculiar for being somewhat of a red colour, with red spots rather more or less distant from each other. Before these spots have hardly lost their normal appearance, there would be small nodules making their appearance in the skin. If they were few in number, we might come to the con

clusion that it would be a mild form of the disease; but if they clustered thickly together, then it had entered a severe form. These tumours or nodules are called the papulæ stage of the disease. It is during this stage that the malady is generally most fatal, the sheep dying in proportion to the extent of the papulæ. After a certain length of time, which varies in some instances, but generally a period of three or four days, the redness passes off, the papulæ still remaining; but now of a white, instead of a rose colour. This was called the vesicular stage of the disease; so called because little blisters rise on the papulæ. It was in this second stage that they were enabled to take material for inoculation. The limit of duration to this stage was three or four days. This was very important, because it was only in the vesicular stage that they could inoculate. If they waited till the third or fourth day they would be very likely to have material unfit for incubation. It was now that they began to have an abatement of the symptoms, few animals dying in this stage. The period of vesication having passed, they got to another stage of the disease, called the ulcerative. They could readily imagine that where the vesicles had existed there would be large sores left, which would eat their way into the tissues below. Ulceration sometimes spreads in the sheep with very great rapidity, resulting in a return of the fever, from which the animal was likely to have a return of the d sease. Ulceration was not, whilst the period of however, of frequent occurrence; its duration was about a week or ten days. We then had the crustaceous stage of the disease, by which time the sore parts would begin to heal up; but cicatrices and scars would be left on the head and other parts of the animal, the parts so marked being denuded of hair. Having pointed out the progress and fatality of the disease, he would now make a few general remarks on the means at their disposal for checking the malady, and thereby saving the lives of a great number of sheep. He believed there was nothing they could use so effectually as that of artificially inducing the disease, or, in other words, inoculating all the sheep when a few were attacked. Suppose they deal with 500 sheep, and that five or six out of that lot show symptoms of the disease, they had only two means of making it apparent amongst the restnamely, by isolation or artificially. With reference to isolation, sometimes it was impracticable to carry it out. A daily examination could not take place where they had their thousands of sheep; and this was more especially the case in Wiltshire, where it would be impossible, from the extent of its flocks, to carry the plan into operation. Thus they were thrown back upon inoculation; for the successful carrying out of which, they had certain rules which it was important should be known. One rule to be observed was, to inoculate if possible in temperate weather."

Another meeting was held in the Town Hall, Devizes, on Thursday last, Mr. George Brown in the chair, when the following resolutions were agreed to:

"That this meeting regards with concern the continued spread of small-pox in sheep, and considers it expedient that the farmers of this and other counties should combine, with a view to adopt active measures for arresting the progress of the disease."

"That such combination shall be brought about by the formation of a society, to be termed The Mutual Association for the Prevention of Small-pox in Sheep.' The association shall consist of flockmasters and others, who shall be enrolled as members on the payment of one sovereign."

"That it be a standing rule to separate any suspected cases, and to bury, unskinned and unshorn, all sheep dying affected with small-pox. [And not to inoculate any sheep or lambs but upon a certificate being given by five of the committee residing near the affected flock, and by the veterinary surgeon appointed as inspector by this society.] Any member having recourse to inoculation without such certificate shall forfeit all claim for any losses on the society. All disputes shall be referred to the committee, five of whom shall be a quorum, and whose decision shall be final."

The following are the names of the committee: The Chairman, Major Goddard, C. Darby Griffith, Esq., M.P., Messrs. W. Sainsbury, W. Brown (Hazelbury), Robert Long, Thos. Brown (Horton), Wm. Ferris, Edw. Goodman, Thos. Kemm (Avebury), John Wentworth, Thos. Ferris, Joseph Parry, Fred. Stratton, W. Butler, Simon Hischcock, J. W. Brown, Samuel Smith, Wm. Long (Amesbury), F. S. Long, W. B.

Canning, W. Tanner, John Tanner, E. Mills, L. P. Maton, Edw. Wa'ers, Wm. Large, Wm. Melsome, E. Olding, John Moore, Wm. Gulliver, Wm. Fowle, A. Baden, John Gale, and James Rawlence, with power to add to their number.

Mr. H. Kent Norris, of Devizes, was appointed secretary to the association.

The third resolution originally read thus:

"That it shall be a standing rule to separate at once any suspected cases, and to destroy and bury all sheep affected with small pox, on a certificate being given by any qualified veterinary surgeon appointed as inspector by the society. Any member having recourse to inoculation shall forfeit all claim for any losses on the society. Any dispute shall be referred to the committee which may be appointed to carry out the objects of the association, of whom five shall constitute a quorum, and whose decision shall be final."-But was amended after some discussion as to the benefit of inoculation.

Mr. Acton, the well-known surgeon of Queen Anne-street, has been down in Wiltshire, with Professor Simonde, while Mr. Spooner, of Eling, Hants, and Professor Gamgee have ad dressed meetings in the district; but we are sorry to hear that an attempt was made in certain quarters to prejudice the presence of the latter, a feeling with which, however, the agriculturists have very properly refused to identify themselves, Mr. Gamgee is a very able man, with the courage to think and act for himself, and for these very reasons his services at such a crisis should be rather welcomed than scouted-even by his brother-professionals. The Yorkshire Gazette of Saturday says:

"We feel much grieved to state that the disease amongst sheep, now prevailing in Dorsetshire, Wilts, and Hants, has reached Lincolnshire, to the dismay of flockmasters. The veterinaries are busily engaged in the Deepings and their vicinity, with but faint hope of exterminating this dreadful calamity."

In this article we propose offering a few desultory observations on the question, Has the obese system of fattening cattle, as practised for upwards of half-a-century, and which is still the fashion, a tendency to increase the nor mal proportion of fat, but decrease that of lean, and withont increasing the carcase-weight of animals? Speaking from memory, the object of the Smithfield Cattle Club is "To produce the greatest possible amount of meat of the best quality at the lowest price." Such being their proposition, the remarks we are about to make will show, that by encouraging the production of an excess of fat, the greater portion of which goes to the tallow-chandler, the lean meat, available for the food of man, has been decreased below the normal standard, both as to weight and quality. And if we shall succeed in proving this, the reader will readily perceive that the Smithfield Cattle Club are not performing the functions for which they were constituted. The Royal Agricultural Society of England, the Highland Society, and the other societies, both for breeding and fat stock, are in a similar position, the general practice pursued having a tendency to increase fat, but decrease the weight and quality

of lean.

It may be as well in this place to mention, that our object is to induce the Smithfield Club, and other fat-stock Clubs and Societies, to take the necessary practical steps for encouraging the opposite practice, viz., the growth of rich juicy lean meat in greater abundance, with no more fat than is necessary for health and domestic economy. In other words, LEAN versus FAT; or the natural system of feeding cattle. But to the solution of this latter problem we shall have to return in a subsequent article. For the present we have enough on hand to dispose of the opposite problem at the head of our paper, viz., FAT versus LEAN; or the OBESE SYSTEM OF FEEDING CATTLE.

What is fat? The printer has one answer to this interogatory, and the farmer another; but we shall have to take up the question in a somewhat different light from either, with a view to determine the function fat performs in the animal economy, and the purpose it serves in the dietary of man and cattle.

Although considerable attention has already been paid to the chemistry of animal fats, as of the ox, sheep, and pig, yet much remains to be done to supply the growing demands of physiology. These fats are regarded as having a true saline composition, consisting of stearic, margeric, and oleic acids, and a common base glycerine, thus forming stearine, margarine, and oleine. But it is a well-known fact, that each of the above fats, viz., ox-fat, mutton-suet, and hog'slard, is associated with other proximate principles, and that a knowledge of these would be of more importance to the physiologist and farmer, and also to the physician, than a knowledge of those usually specified by chemists. Thus mutton-suet consists of stearine, margarine, oleine, hircine, and hircic acid" (Reveira), and most probably other flavouring matters than the latter two, as the taste of the

suet is always less or more affected by the quality of the food on which the sheep had been fed. Thus the suet of sheep fed on rich down or hill pasture is finely flavoured, while that fed on oilcake is the reverse. Similar diversities in the quality of food produce corresponding effects upon the taste and flavour of ox fat and hog's-lard. "The fat, considered physiologically says Dewglison, "has for its function to protect the organs, maintain their temperature, and to serve for nutrition in case of need, as is observed in torpid animals." According to this writer, its function is thus of a threefold character. In a normal state of health and weight, for example-first, so much fat is necessary to protect the organs; and, secondly, so much is required to keep up the temperature of the body. For both these purposes a daily consumption of fatty matter may take place, and such will be procured directly from the food, if it contains so much. But, in the third place, when the food contains more fat-forming elements than are required for the above two purposes, a reserve of fat is stored up in the adipose tissue to supply the demands of the system in the emergency of none being obtained from food, as in the case of hybernation, when animals sleep during winter in a torpid state; or in the case of fasting during seasons of scarcity, as in winter in this country, and in periods of drought experienced by the fat-tailed sheep and humped-ox of East Africa, where we see Nature making ample provision for peculiar exigencies of this kind.

In the case of the fat-tailed sheep, and of hybernating animals, the accumulation of fat is natural; so that the nor mal health is not injuriously interfered with. But the reader must be well aware that unnatural practices are resorted to, in order to produce an accumulation of fat in our domesticated animals-as in the cramming of geese, blind ing quadrupeds, &c., &c., when an abnormal state of health is experienced in various forms; as, for example, of obe sity, rot, &c., &c., &c. It is to the principles involved in the abnormal cases that our observations will chiefly be confined, viz., to an excess of unhealthy fat, a decrease of lean, and an excess of water and bad fat, as in the fatty stage of sheep rot, &c., &c.

In the process of fattening geese (to obtain the foie gras of the French) by cramming with fatty food, in that of fat tening women for harems in Turkey on flour and honey, in sewing up the eyes of cattle in the East, or in fattening them in dark warm places and on improper food in this country, similar principles are involved. Sleep, or a state of the system similar to it, for instance, is induced. The number of respirations in a given time is thus lowered, and consequently the consumption of fat-forming element. The active functions thus concentrate their energies, as it were, almost wholly to the formation of fat of an inferior quality. And as the rule holds good in this as in all other mechanical questions, it consequently follows that nervous and muscular action cannot take place but at the expense

lamb's. The weights are attached; and the highest weight of three washed wether fleeces seems to be 17lbs. 15ozs., of ewe's 13lbs. 10ozs., of hogget's 131bs., and of lamb's 84lbs.

The exports of wool from Sydney in 1860 amounted to nearly thirteen million pounds, of the estimated value of £1,124,000. Besides this, a considerable quantity crossed the Murray River for shipment at Melbourne, and was sent down the Darling for shipment to Adelaide. In the last ten years there have been exported from New South Wales not less than 159,000,000 lbs. of wool, of the estimated value of upwards of £11,000,000. Among the samples which may be noticed in the New South Wales Court are fine scoured wool of four qualities, sent by Messrs. Clive, Hamilton, and Traill; the first quality of which is so fine and good, that a price could scarcely be fixed for it by the judges, but it was valued at 4s. to 4s. 6d. per lb. This is the well-known C,Y. brand. There are locks of hogget and ewe wools, 4 to 5 inches long. Scoured wool, shown by Messrs. Cox, is worth 3s. 6d. per lb. Washed fleece wool is shown by Messrs. Lord and Ramsay, from sheep the progeny of the merino stock of the Messrs. Macarthur, of Camden, originally for George III.'s stock at Kew. In 1824 this wool sold as high as 10s. 3d. a pound. This sample is not well got up: it is too much washed, and the character and quality are seen better in the grease. Messrs. Ebsworth & Co. show the fleece of a colonial bred ram, weighing in the grease 10 lbs. Fleece wool of the Leicester breed is shown; but this is scarcely suited to the colony, for the wool loses quality, which it is impossible in the climate to get weight to compensate for.

Although there is a present demand for clothing wool, the Australian sheep farmers would, we think, be wrong to direct their attention to the production of coarse wool instead of the finer wool, for which the climate is so especially adapted. The German farmers, who labour under disadvantages, and who in many

| cases have to protect their sheep from the inclemency of the weather, might, on the contrary, produce clothing wool on a more extensive scale, to the advantage of their population, who would gain in food by the large carcass; whilst the Australian colonists might be left to supply the finer wools required for broadcloths, and for which their climate and pastures are so well suited. From Queensland there are some fine samples of wool shown. There is the fleece of a ram hogget, weighing 4 lbs. 7 oz.: the first cross from imported 1ams, bred by M. Godin, sen., of Latillon, in Burgundy. There are others weighing 4 lbs 5 oz.; second cross 3 lbs. 12 oz. ; and some merinos 4 lbs. Mr. J. Balfour shows twenty-two fleeces from his Clinton stock of merinos, weighing 5 lbs., the average of his fleeces being 3 lbs. 14 oz., and the wool of first crosses from Spanish merinos from the imperial farm of Gevrolles and from Chatillon. Messrs. F. and F. Biggs send thirteen fleeces of fine wool, and Mr. Marsh, M.P., shows some fine varieties of the silky new merino Mauchamp race of M. Granz, and broadcloths made of his wool.

From South Australia some very fair samples of wool are sent by seven or eight growers. The most important are fleeces forwarded by Messrs. Peacock and Son, weighing respectively 7, 5, and 4 lbs., and from 4 to 11 inches staple, and Mr. J. Bennett fleeces weighing 61, 41, and 3 lbs. respectively, and the locks measuring 7, 9, and 10 inches. Western Australia has only forwarded two or three samples of the wool. A cross between the Merino and Leicester and the Romney Marsh breed are those principally raised here. New Zealand, which is a rising wool-producing colony, sends samples of various mixed breed woolscrosses between the Merino, Cotswold, and Leicester. Wellington, Nelson, and Aukland each contribute wool; but the other five or six provinces send none. Tasmania has furnished little to represent her wool, but that sent is good.

In our last we drew the attention of fruit growers to the fact that an extensive show of blossom is no certain criterion of a plentiful crop of fruit, but very generally the reverse. Birde are too indiscriminately accused of destroying the fruit buds. They do no such thing. The fact is, when they are supposed to be so engaged, they are actively employed dislodging and devouring insects which have already taken possession of the buds, being there hatched from the eggs deposited by the adult females, and if left unmolested by those useful creatures would not only completely devour the buds, but continue the multiplication of their species until in time they would eat up every green thing. The infinite wisdom of the Great Creator is in all things seen to be perfect; and in none of His works is this more beautifully displayed than in the ordering of that balance which exists between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and which if left alone, would work harmoniously for the benefit of man.

The great majority of butterflies, moths, and beetles, in their caterpillar or grub state, feed on vegetables, and it is only when in that state they become our enemies; and their power of propagation is so great as to have no parallel in the whole range of animated nature. Many of them are so minute as to be almost invisible to the naked eye, yet the mischief they occasion is beyond all human calculation, and their habits are so curicus and obscure as to be understood only by the scientific entomologist. The cultivator of the land, whose interest is so much at stake in respect to the economy of these, the almost lowest grade in animal life, treats the study of entomology as a chimera and delusion; and so long as he

BIRDS.

shuts his eyes to the truths of science, so long will he suffer in his basket and in his store.

Certain classes of insects have been created to feed upon vegetable food alone; so also have certain classes of birds been created to feed on these insects, that the proper balance may be maintained. Hence birds are classed as insectivorous, granivorous, and carnivorous. To understand their classificatiou, so as to be able to distinguish the one of these classes from the other, should be the study of both the gardener and the farmer, if they wish for the preservation of their crops; but instead of inquiring into these distinctions, which should be considered as first principles for their guidance, they have, through ignorance, for ages maintained a cruel, unnecessary, and mistaken war of extermination, alike against their feathered friends and foes.

It is at this season of the year that the great utility of birds may be most easily determined; and on this point a very slight degree of observation must lead conviction to the mind of any ordinary rational being. Insects are making sad havoc in our orchards and gardens at the present moment, and to them, in addition to the effects of superabundant blossom noticed in our last, is to be attributed the damage doing at this time, for we have not to complain of late spring frosts this season. Our contemporaries are one and all giving very dismal accounts of the fruit prospects in every part of the kingdom. The Times deemed it necessary to join in the universal cry in favour of the birds, and even Punch has come out in his own peculiar manner with a well-timed and forcible broadside.