SCIENCE AND THE FARMER.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13181, 13 February 1936, Page 5

SCIENCE AND THE FARMER.

S A FEGUA R DIN G ANIMAL HEALTH. SOME VALUABLE DISCOVERIES. Electric Telegraph—Press Association WELLINGTON, Last Night. “Outstanding results in the improvement of stock health are being obtained in the co-operative investigations of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and Cawthron Institute at Gleixhope, Nelson, and Morton Mains, Southland, as the result of supplementing the natural pasturage of sheep with minute quantities of cobalt chloride,” stated tliq Minister of Scientific and Industrial Research to-day. “At Glenhope sheep affected with an ailment which' shows typical symptoms of bush sickness have made a marked recovery as the result of administering twice weekly a small amount of cobalt salt, "the dosage being approximately 1-30,000 oz.

At Morton Mains similar treatment of lambs on glazing pastures associated with what is known locally as Morton Mains ailment has resulted in a surprising increase in the weight and improvement in stock health. In the Southland experiments the lambs receiving cobalt salt have gained during a period of less than two months an average of 101 b per head more than the corresponding lambs not. receiving the cobalt supplement, but otherwise on exactly the same pasturage. W hile it is yet too early to state that cobalt deficiency is the •sole cause of the Nelson and Southland stock ailments the evidence so far available points strongly in that direction as in addition to the results of feeding small quantities of cobalt it has been shown by microanalysis that cobalt is markedly deficient in these soils compared with the same soils in a healthy country. Th© same deficiency is shown in certain typical bush-sick soils in the North Island.”