BUSH SICKNESS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 140, 10 December 1926, Page 9

BUSH SICKNESS

A LITIGANT'S THEORY.

(By Tclepraith.—Press Association.) ' HAMILTON, 9th Dee.

Giving evidence for the defence in a ease in which Frederick Freeman Rogers is suing the Matarawa Land Company for £1000 damages for alleged misrepresentation in respect of the sale of a farm afTokoroa, Samuel Burton, for over 20 years a Government veterinarian and now in private practice, said that in X 919 he investigated bush sickness at Mamaku. The Government instituted investigations of the disease, but proved- nothing. Witness discovered the disease was present in the soil. The Soil was very friable. Cattle,' sheep, and-.goats pulled, their f oed, dislodging -some of the soil, and took in quantities of silica, which was really ground glass. This _spt up an inflammatory condition of the intestines until it irritated to such an extent that the beasts were unable to digest their food. Oxide of silicon had been in the excreta of cows fed on the land. In all post-mortem examinations of cattle which died from bush sickness he found from one to two handfuls of. ground glass in the stomach. Cattle thrived.for a time on this land, and'after they : sickened the cattlo" should bo removed to ■ another district, when they, would Tccoypr- after, a few weeks. To witness's mind there was no doubt but that his theory was correct. ,'■■■.••.•'■. r.' ■• •-••■■

IJis Honour: -f Has your theory been accepted? ", —"Not by the Government. Other scientists have, however, agreed with my theory. -.Dr. .(Minith thought it was due to cattle .eating the soil.' The disease.is not-known anywhere else in- the : world and. is,-- peculiar to the Tokoroa district. /Export farmers: and valuers declared the'land to be good dairying land provided, it. was properly handled,''- ■■ The case will conclude on Friday.