CORRESPONDENCE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 297, 11 August 1875, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

:o: Our columns are open for free discussion : but we do not hold ourselves responsible for the opinions of our Correspondents. :o:

STAGGERS IN SHEEP.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —For the last two years I have been a close observer of this unaccountable disease, staggers in sheep, and ihreugh the medium of your journal I will feel obliged if you make public my observations thereon. Sheep, apparently sound, when disturbed (sharply) full down in a fit as if poisoned by strychnine; while in the fit., the eye is open and unnaturally large and prominent, with a quick quiver, as if under the action of n galvanic battery ; when recovered from the fit they turn their head,towards the loins and stand for some time in that position as if the loins were a seat of great pain. I have killed and opened several that would not have lived, being too long cast before I came across them the brain aud spinal marrow seemed to be; healthy; the small intestines were quite empty and inflamed ; tile contents of the paunch like the droppings Irom a horse, unnaturally hard, with indigestible grass fibres, aud the membrane that discharges from the paunch often stopped up by hard lumps. I feel now convinced tlpit the ergot in ryegrass has nothing Io do with the disease, and that tlie cause of it must be looked for to some other source. 1 had the last full 400 wouners in a paddock, and all the rye-gruss in it 1 could put in my hut. In this very enclosure the staggers commenced first, the principal feed was clover, riri waka, and several kinds of toi toi, and I had very few sheep bad with staggers in the enclosures when rye grass is the principal feed. Any competent medical nun could inform you what effect ergot in rye grass has on animal life. I have seen sheep go to water looking sound and healthy, and as soon ns they drank full down with sluggers. An instance bits been known at Mr. Cameron’s where sheep were in an enclosure, and they had no staggers until a few of them got to some water in a tub and those (I am told on good authority) hud staggers immediately after drinking. The disease is not fatal if the sheep arc attended to when they go to water, but if the shepherd is not with them, they will fall and suffocate in three inches of water ; and, also, if on level ground when they fall they get cast, aud will never recover their feet if not. assisted.

I have hud fifty years experience in sheep breeding, and I never heard of or saw staggers in sneep until at Mr. J. Rhodes’, Clive Grange Napier, in 1867. It is not known in any of the neighboring Colonies, neither have I heard or rend of it in Somersetshire (one of the largest grazing counties in England) where rye grass is greatly cultivated, and there called ever grass. Shifting sheep often to clean feed, even if bare, is, to a great extent, a preventative ; also, keeping them from water, although I know many of the sheepfatiuers of this district will not agree with me in the last named preventu. tive; I never saw sheep much in want of water in New Zealand, there being always something green for them to cat, but if accustomed to water daily they will drink nearly to bursting, and I think it does them little good. This is an old adage “ you are like a flock of sheep, when one drinks all must drink whether you require it or not,” alluding, I suppose, to a party of friends meeting at a public house.

I may state that I never saw water on the brain (by shepherds called “ Sturdy) ” in New Zealand, although in Victoria we used to lose often five per cent, of hoggets with that complaint, neither hare I seen fluke in New Zealand, although a great part of the runs are swampy. I have known fluky sheep, two and four tooth ewes, to bo shipped to Otago from Victoria; some of the same sheep I afterwards saw in Otago free from fluke, and I had the curiosity to look at some of their livers when butchered, and found the decayed, dead flukes in the pipes of the liver; the salt bush in Riverina has the same effect on fluke, and I imagine the ground tutu of Otago, or some other shrub they brouse on destroys fluke in the Colony.

Whoever finds out a proper cure for staggers in New Zealand will confer a great boon not only on the floekmaster, but also on the kind and faithful shepherd, and ought to be well rewarded. —-I am, &c., K.S.C. Lavenham, August 4, 1875.

Sib, —As I think the intention of all law is, or ought to be, the prevention, rather than the punishment of any breach thereof, the more that the public becomes acquainted with those in operation the better for all sections of the community, as it would be the means of preventing both crime and litigation. All should make themselves acquainted, as much as they can with those enactments, then the law respecting portion of society would know better when they were imposed upon by unprincipled villains or incompetent judges.

As I love law, but not the necessity for punishment or litigation, l intend—so far a? my weak abilities and knowledge of law will enable me—to endeavor to rouse the community to take an interest in their own personal affairs and not be like the man who married two wives—one young and one old ; and as he was getting gray, the young one pulled all the white hairs, to make look young, and the old one pulled tha black one to make him look old; he remained passive during the operatian, but when lAfound he was bald he began to grumble. & with the public generally, they remain pas Jive while one after another is getting fleeced, then each of them as they suffer commences to grumble forgetting that witU the body politic, as with the human, if one member suffers all the other members suffer with it; but instead of arranging yourselves and by one united effort prevent the injustice from becoming chronic, by administering aperient medicine in the shape of plain speaking, shewing that you know the difference between justice and injustice, and if your remonstrance is disregarded then, as

one united body appeal to the Government of the day showing good cause for your complaint. No Government could withstand the appea), as I well remember in 1851, when tlie monster petition was entrusted to Lord John (now Earl) Russell for presentation to the House of Commons, having attached to it 150,000 signatures he pronounced these evermeinorable words: —“It is impossible that the whispers of a faction can drown the united voice of a nation,” Acting by the advice of the great statesman, let us act in concert, showing that we believe in the great truth that our interests are one, and, ns it is probable that before long we mny called on to exercise the franchise,in-electing a member to the House of Representatives, let us as free electors, rally round the standard of Mr. Moorhouse the man who will see to our necessities being attended to, and our grievances re Ire-sed ; let none of us worship the calf, dressed up in a gold ring and gay clothing, or like old Esau self our birthright for a mess of potage, by believing the promises of any interested clack that might endeavor to persuade us not to rote for the only man that would do this district any good. Let us show t hat we have the good of the district at heart, and by standing fust to our purpose shew that weave worthy of tl^e.trust, reposed in us. -1 am, &c., R. Bbbingan. Str, —I regret that you should think the words “ cowardly attacks ” in my letter of the 2nd inst., should have any reference to your comments on the subject in question. If such a const ruction cap be put on my letter I beg most sincerely to apologise for it. Your remarks, I consider—and have frequently upheld—as a thoroughly impartial review of the case as it appeared. Indeed the impartial manner in which public mutters hare been discussed in the Standard, has been its leading characteristic since its first appearance. With all duo deference to your opinion I must still designate letters written by private individuals against a man who they know cannot reply to them;as “cowardly attacks” whether they be written from private spleen, or a too blind partiality for I he opposite party ; -although they may be written in strict conformity with the rules of t in- press, and hea r a superficial appearance of public interest.—, I am, &c., Etjunr. Ormond, August 9th, 1875.