All these things being ready, the poles are prepared for the different purposes to which they can be converted. The butend of the pole is first sawed off: 44-feet lengths make a pair of heads, a a Fig. 5. ; 9-feet lengths make a pair of slotes, bbbb bb; 5-feet lengths make a pair of stay-slotes, cc; 33-feet lengths make a pair of uprights, d. Fig. 6. The next proceeding is rending the different pieces: this is done at the rending frame. The piece is put over the bridge with the but-end upwards. The flamard, a, Fig. 6., is placed across the pith, and driven down with a wooden baton, b. When entered down a foot or two, the pole is brought up to bear upon the bridge, and at the same time on the under side of the top of the trestle. The pole being kept down с a b by the left hand, while the flamard is guided by the right, by bending and turning the pole, the cleavage is performed from VOL. III. NO. XV. end to end with great exactness. In this way all the different pieces are cloven. They next undergo a little chopping or hewing with the hatchet, to cut off knots on the outside, keeping the inside as straight and square as possible. The next operation is shaving off the bark and all irregularities, and giving each member its proper form. The maker next proceeds to form the hurdles: four low stumps are driven into the ground to mark the length, and four others to mark the distance between the upper and lower slotes : a pair of heads, one at each end, are laid down in their right position, the flat or pith side upwards: the six slotes are then laid at due distances upon the heads, and the latter are "scribed" to the size of each slote, to regulate the mortises. One of the heads is then placed on the staple before mentioned, and resting upon the top of the mortising-stool, to which it is fixed in an opening by a wedge. The centre-bit and stock drills out a hole at each end of the mortises, and also one for the diagonal brace slote, about two inches below the lowest slote, and a little out of the line of the mortises above. It will be observed that mortises made by the centre-bit leave an intermediate piece between the apertures: this is taken out by the tomahawk, a tool made for the purpose, c, Fig. 6. One end is a sharp stout pointed knife, which cuts each side of the middle piece left in the mortise, and the other end hooks out the piece if not dislodged by the knife. This head is now hammered on to the slotes; and the other head is prepared, and hammered on in the same way. The top and bottom slotes are next nailed to the heads, and then the upright slote exactly in the middle. The two stay-slotes are cut with a bend at the bottom, and rather sharply pointed: the point is driven through thin oblique mortises, and their heads brought up to bear on the top of the upright, and nailed to each slote from top to bottom. The hurdle is then raised on its feet, and the nails clenched, which finishes the busi ness. The gimlet is used for every nail, and a small block of wood is placed under each slote while the nail is driven. This description makes hurdle-making appear a very tedious affair; but, in fact, it is not so. It is astonishing how soon an expert hand will put together a pile of hurdles, one dozen being an ordinary day's work of nine or ten hours, and sometimes more if the stuff be clean and straight. The nails used in hurdle-making are of the best iron, and what are called " fine drawn," not square, but rather flattened, to facilitate clenching, on which much of the strength of the hurdle depends; the head of the nails is rather large; their price is 6d. per pound. One hundred poles at 18s. make three dozen hurdles, which, including nails and workmanship, amount to L. 1:11:6, or 10s. 6d. per dozen. Although the longitudinal slotes are cut nine feet long, the hurdle, when finished, is only somewhat more than eight feet, the slote ends going through the heads an inch or two. Two to a rod, or eight to a chain of twenty-two yards, is the usual allowance. A larger kind of hurdles, called Park Hurdles, worth 2s. each, is made for subdividing meadows or pastures; these are a sufficient fence against any cattle. Iron hurdles, invented by King George IV., charged 6s. each, are much used by opulent individuals in the south of England, and which are in the long run even more economical than those of wood. It may be added, that the hurdle-maker uses no footrule in his operations, he having rods cut to the different lengths of the respective pieces; and the mortising, which with a mallet and chissel would take up an hour, is done with the centre-bit and hawk in five minutes. The entire distances between the slotes are arranged by the eye, the lower ones being gradually closer together, as represented in Fig. 5.; the strongest pair of slotes are usually chosen for the highest and lowest of the hurdle. MIDDLESEX, J. M. ON THE FOOT-ROT IN SHEEP. By Mr BLACK, Farm-Overseer to His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch. (To the Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture.) In your Number for February 1831, I read an essay on footrot in sheep, by Mr Dick; and although I agree with him in the various views which he takes of the disease, there appears to me to be one part of the subject which he has not so fully discussed as it merits, and I therefore beg to offer the following remarks, which may serve still further to clear up this subject. From a number of years' sad experience of the ravaging effeets of the disease in sheep called foot-rot, I am now perfectly satisfied that the disease is neither contagious nor hereditary, but that it proceeds entirely from the state of the pasture, combined with the habits of the animal laid upon it. This was proved to me by experiments made in the summer of 1830. Before that time, I was as firm a convert to the doctrine of the infectious nature of the foot-rot as any man could be. In the summer of 1830, I had nine score of black-faced wedders, and four score of black-faced ewes, pasturing in one field; they were laid on in the month of April, and all continued till the middle of July sound and healthy. On the 18th of July, however, as may be well recollected by those who had any thing to do in the making of hay, it changed from bright sunshine to moist showery weather. In the course of a few days after the change in the state of the weather took place, a no less remarkable change took place in my black-faced sheep; for the foot-rot now broke out among them with the most determined virulence. In the course of a fortnight, there were ten score of these ewes and wedders affected with the disease; and they were then seen crawling about upon their knees, with bellies drawn up to their backs. I tried all the nostrums usually recommended, such as hot tar, butter of antimony, quicklime, &c. &c. but to very little purpose. I therefore determined to change the pasture, which was a rough coarse grass, because I was satisfied that the disease was kept up by the damp state of the pasture, which arose in a great measure from its being surrounded with trees on every side, which, by preventing the currents of air, re. tarded the drying up of the moisture; and such was now my confidence in the non-contagious nature of the disease, that I had all the thirteen score driven into a field where 1 had seven score of Leicester and Cheviot ewes and lambs, in a perfectly sound state. The field, on the contrary, on which the sound sheep pastured, was in an open airy situation; it had rather a thin stool of grass, and, from being sweet pasture, was closely eaten down. In the course of a few days my lame flock presented a very different appearance; all those that were not too far gone became quite sound in the course of ten days; but those in which the disease had made farther progress, and in which the horny part of the hoof was separated from the sensitive part, continued lame until such time as the loose hoof had been pared away, and a new one supplied its place. The whole recovered and continued sound, except four, which are not yet recovered, and which are not likely to do so, as I suspect the whole structure of their feet must have become injured, from the long continuance and violence of the disease. My views of the non-contagion of the disease were here fully substantiated. Not one of the Leicester or Cheviot ewes or their lambs, which were in the field when the diseased ones were put into it, and in which they all remained, became in the slightest degree infected. Previous to my removing the sheep from the one park to the other, I discovered that the disease presented various stages. In the first stage, the foot had a blanched appearance between the hoofs, caused by the friction of the long damp grass between them, and by the action of the digits against each other in a continued state of wetness. In the second stage, the foot presented a reddish inflamed appearance, felt exceedingly warm to the touch, and continued so for some days; the hoof began to feel loose, putrid matter to ooze out at various parts of the foot, and the hoof to grow with extraordinary rapidity. This appeared to me to be an effort of nature to supply a new hoof, instead of that which had been detached by disease. I am, moreover, satisfied that some breeds are more liable to the disease than others, and I am convinced that the more sheep are domesticated, the less liable are they to be diseased. This I discovered from watching the different movements and habits of |