FOOTROT AT LINCOLN COLLEGE

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21813, 19 June 1936, Page 17

FOOTROT AT LINCOLN COLLEGE

TO THE EDITOB «F THE PRESS. Sir,— Reading the report of the Board of Governors at Lincoln College in your issue of June 10, I think the board should be careful what It lets get into the press, as practical farmers all over the country read the reports. and, I think, a great majority of them will agree with me that there is nothing very practical in what the college did with regard to footrot. It was stated by the farm manager that the sheep had much improved since going to “Ashley Dene,” and a member remarked that this farm was not footrot country. Well, I should like to tell the members that it is now. if they have put sheep on it that are infected: and they certainly have by the report. I am very surprised to know that the only agricultural college in the South Island, with all its scientific knowledge available on the disease tor at least, if it has not it should have), had to revert to the method of polluting a dean place on account of its being a bit drier, to cure the disease. There is not the slightest reason why it should not have been cleaned up at the college. One member remarked that this was a footrot season; he did not say why it was so. but I should judge he meant on account of its being so wet; but if he looks back he will find there has been very little rainfall since the middle of March, and one of the best autumns I have known for long time for thorough and systematic treatment of footrot. I should like to say to that member of the board that footrot whether the season is wet or dry, is a chronic, infectious disease, and the pus from an infected foot, which 1$ full of organisms, is discharged on the grass and can easily contaminate others of the flock. The cause of sheep getting footrot more in wet weather then dry is that the fluid which is secrete.* from a gland to lubricate the claws is constantly getting washed off. rendering the parts liable to inflammation, and if the organisms are present they gain entry and then the trouble starts. While I am not casting any reflections on the members, I would like to have seen Lincoln College attacking the disease with a vengeance and giving farmers the benefit of its work, as every farmer suffering from footrot in his sheep has not got an "Ashley Dene.”—Yours, etc.. * ANTI-FOOTROT. June 11, 1936.

[When he was shown this letter, a member who had discussed the matter at the board meeting said that, as all farmers knew, the trouble was largely seasonal —virulent frequently on heavy or medium land in wet seasons and of little concern on dry land. This season many farmers had the trouble in their flocks for the first time. It was a usual farm practice to move sheep from a heavy to a drier paddock. In regard to the writer’s statement that there had been very little rainfall since the middle of March to make this a “footrot" season, the year’s rainfall figures for Christchurch showed that up to the beginning of May, when the trouble was at its peak, 17.10 inches had fallen, compared to 4.43 inches for the corresponding period last year. The reason the writer gave for footrot being more prevalent in wet weather than in dry was the very reason why farmers —as the college did —moved their sheep to a dry paddock if they had it. If the writer read the article in last Saturday’s paper published under the auspicies of the college, it might suggest to him that the board was fully alive to the value of disseminating information about the trouble and how to treat it.]