BUSH SICKNESS.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1881, 15 October 1913, Page 10

BUSH SICKNESS.

, IRON TUB REMEDY. Mr. C.' J. Itcakes, Director of tlie Live Stock and Meat Division of the Department of Agriculture, reports that the experiments that nro being 'conducted in connection with the bush sickncss •at tho Manakau Experiment Farm (near .Rotorua) are so far proving highly satisfactory. In the district mentioned thbro is approximately about a million acres of bush and partlycleared land on which cattle and sheep contract a wasting disease, which finally ends in death, a uiseaso which, strangely enough, does not affect horses turned out on the same land. • A conclusion was arrived at long ago by those interested: that the land lacked some important constituent, tho want of which deprived tho herbage of a virtue essential to tho health of cattle and sheep. Some ; two years ago the Agricultural Department decided to experiment practically on the spot, and later the Slamaku Experiment Fann was established on the .Mamaku Hill, oyer which the Rotorua express climbs daily. These experiments have practically established tho belief that iron is the missing constituent, and that cattlo and sbeop die in what is to the eye "a land of plenty, marked by a luxuriant growth of grass and bush, through a form of anaemia: - Certain blocks of the land iiavo been treated accordingly, and on these both cattlo and sheep aro doing splendidly, whilst bo.vond that area the hush sickness i 3 painfully apparent. ; To further test the theory that iron was the missing ingredient in tho feed cattle have been hand-fed from "bottles with phosphate of iron, and have almost immediately shown improvement. Tho animals so treated have become so fond of their medicine that as soon as tho "doctor" arrives, bottle in hand, his bovino patients run to meet him, and with keen relish drink the contents.