1083. To improve the Wool of Sheep, by Smearing.—Immediately after the sheep are shorn, soak the roots of the wool that remain all over with oil or butter and brimstone; and three or four days afterwards, wash them with salt and water. The wool of next season will not only be much finer, but the quantity will be in greater abundance. It may be depended upon, that the sheep will not be troubled with the scab or vermin that year. Salt water is a safe and effectual remedy against maggots.
1084. To preserve Cattle from Disease in the Winter.—When cattle are kept out in the winter, it is recommended as an useful practice to rub some tar at the root of the horn, which prevents the wet from getting between the root and the skin, and, it is said, contributes to preserve the health of the animal, and to keep it free from various diseases to which it may otherwise be liable.
1085. How to Promote the Health of Farm Animals.—All domestic animals should be abundantly furnished with salt. A supply kept within their reach, whenever it can be done, is recommended. Horses and pigs should occasionally have ashes given them in their food; and pigs ought at all times, when confined in pens, to be supplied with charcoal, as, besides being a medicine, it is a cheap and valuable food.
1086. Parsley recommended to Farmers to be sown with Rape-seed, as a preservative against the Resp in Sheep.—A correspondent of the "Chester Chronicle" recommends to all farmers who sow rape-seed, to sow with it a small portion of parsley at the same time; this he pronounces an infallible preservative against the malady well-known by the name of resp, in sheep: he also advises to sow parsley on turnip land at the time of hoeing turnips. The above correspondent asserts, that he has pursued this plan upwards of twenty-five years, and during that time he has never lost one sheep, either in rape or turnip land.
Remark.—In some counties, parsley is sown with clover, on the supposition that it prevents cattle from being bursten, or hoven.