A TALK ABOUT TICK.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 1 August 1907, Page 3

A TALK ABOUT TICK.

I SHEEP MEN DIPPER. , AN UNSOLVED PROBLEM. (Erom our Special Reporter.) Wellington, July 81. It fell to the lot of Mr Tcsehcmeker, of Timaru, t.O make the most weighty, though brief, contribution to the N/5. Agricultural Conference now sitting iu Wellington, lie announced the spiu;taneoiis generation of sheep tick. Un-

fortunately the conference did not take the discovery seriously. The incident arose, on a motion from Wairaraoa, moved by Mr Bunny, that certain seditions of the "Stock Act of 1803" concerning sheep-dipping should be enforced. Ho went into details of the dipping process, and attributed some t-vl-ures to neglect to keep tho sheep immersed in the dip for sufficiently long periods.

| Mr Buehnnan, also of Wairarapn, said he had sometimes gone to «• farm and found dipped Bheep considerably infected with live eggs of tick. These discoveries censed him to doubt whether any dip were strong enough to kill . 11 tick and eggs at- one dipping. The sheep should be re-dipped after the eggs had hatched, perhaps twice more.

It was tlion thi,t Mr Teschmeker eanie up with his little suggestion., ji was a well-known fact, he said, as .my doctor would tell them, that poverty in the human body sometimes produced spontaneous generation of lice. In the sxane way, he was convinced, tick w;re Spontaneously generated in sheep in an impoverished condition. In Such eases dipping was powerless as a remedy, as the disease did not result, from contamination.

It took 'tlio hard-headed farmers of the conference quito a number of 'iioments to gntsp the full purport of this new doctrine, and a silonco reigned while the conference thought hard. Then the Chairman, Mr J. G. Wilson, rose abruptly and expressed n, hope that it would not go forth as accepted by the conference that tick were spontaneously generated. There was r.o doubt some sheep were more susceptible than others, but this was more likely to be due to the sulphur which existed in the skins of sheep to the weight of about a pound per sheep. Tlio sulphur fumes which emanated from a healthy sheep no doubt acted as a deterrent i o lio«.

Mr T. W. Kirk, whoso duty It is as Government Biologist to he familiar with the ways of lice and other aniin.ils, asked If he' rightly understood Mr Teschempkor. Receiving no information to the contrary, he proceeded to say It was the first time lie had heard of lice in sheep or human beings being born without ancestors, and If tho discovery could be substantiated the phemenon ought to be properly recorded. The Conference was beginning to emit ft broad smile, when Mr D. D. Maefarlane, of Canterbury, hurled out an instance which seemed to support Mr Teschemeker's statement, and he asked "How does Mr Kirk account for that?" "I don't profess to account for it,'' was tlte eiiiinei# biologist's reply, and the*, the conference failing to realise Is duty to fathom this intricate scientific point to the bottom, passed on t-^, the nest business.