FACTS FOR FARMERS. FLUKE AND ITS CAUSES.

Waikato Times, Volume IV, Issue 242, 27 November 1873, Page 2

FACTS FOR FARMERS. FLUKE AND ITS CAUSES.

I see from an article written by .your travelling correspondent, showing how that Mr Boss's fine station has been as vet perfectly free from fluke, although mountainous and wet. I should like to see a number of suoh questions put, and where practicable, and hazirded from a squatter who has so celebrated himself through the best form of proof which could be offered, viz , increasing the value of his run fifty per cent. Possibly here lies the best solution of the question — the adoption of a pei feet system of squatting, not that I would for one moment infer thnt all gentlemen whose sheep are ill or have been, must of necessity be following out, a bad a\ stem. No, not at all, lor I am conversant with a few squatters, whose flocks havi> suffered frightfully from disease, and yet I don't know any number of men gifted with creator practical knowledge, foresight, and ability to do what they know — gentlemen who, during a pretty long and successful career, find that at the last, their flocks have all suddenly become the prey of some desperate disorder, d -tying all then acquired skill and the combined advice of their friends to avert or arrest. There can be no question about the superiority of the practical mind in this colony, either as touching the breed of sheep, weight and charait.-r of wool, and even the general management of disease. I don't suppose that evea in Lincolnshire a class of men better up in the knowledge of disease can be found than in thia colony. I have just read » letter from a super, of a. station describing a disease among the pure bred stock, and in comparing with a scientific author's description of the same malady, I am forced to acknowledge that the symptoms presented by the super, are much clearer than given by the other. I find no difficulty whatever in the diagnoses of disease sent by supers, and stockmen from the interior, but yet those simple diseases, fluke and worms, have defied the best designs of scientific men, and inarched onward, perfectly unconscious that any body was attempting to stop their progress. There is no hiding he fact, that in too ir.any instances the condimental properties of suit, and the tonic properties of corn, and the alterative powers of sulphur, have been, as preventives, as powerless in the stopping of fluke as the water they drank ; m fact, the experiment made by Professorßrown.of America, and confirmed by Dr Horace 'Tjnomouth, and sent to this paper, by me, some weeks ago, confirm the fact, that even pure sulphuric acid will not destroy the ovum, and will only partly destroy parasitical life, while simple sweet phcenol acts like a charm, not only in destroying, but, when combined with other aromatic herbs, completely preventing their development. But I have wandered as freely as the diseases of 1871, 1872, and 1873, hare done themselves. In answer to the particular query put, permit me to say, that it is only water in a particular* state of transformation which proves fa\ourablo to the development of fluke. You will undea«tand what I mean, when I bay that water is good lor health, yet probably , there is as much disease produced through it as through any known cause. The huil which strips your orchards, and the ruin which leaves fungus, or frogs, is water, just as truly as the bright gushing stream from out the clett rock : the water which flows charged with aminonical and uric acids is life and vigour to the green gra«s, and daisy and pretty buttercup, but it, is death to the spotted trout, and sculy perch ; tho water in which float in lmri.ids the bream and flatheacl, is terror and f'eath to the Ti ichocephnlus DepresMusculusj hence, half way up the land oi the mountain and glen, fluke is seldom found ; there the msh, or trickling spetd, of Us glittering coops, rush with too much velocitj, not for the hie of the hepatic oumi but tor Die life of the niolusc in which it loves to opend Ha onrly d:iys. No water w ill permit animnlculso to live if it run five Cie knots nn hour; but stagnant water, on a t-luv subsoil, will geim out myiiarfs, hence it is not the flat-topped mountain, nor the fine plain that it freest from parasitical diseaci*, but it is half way up— Correspondent Town and Country Journal.