In very bad cases, iodine has often been found most effectual. An iodine ointment may be prepared by taking one drachm of hydriodate of potash and an ounce of lard, and mixing them well together. A small portion of the mixture, from the size of a pigeon’s egg, in limited inflammations, to twice that amount, is to be well rubbed into the swollen part, morning and night. When milk forms in the bag before parturition, so as to cause a swelling of the udder, it should be milked away; and a neglect of this precaution often leads to violent attacks of garget. Prevention is always better than cure. The reason most commonly given for letting the cow run dry for a month or two before calving is that after a long period of milking her system requires rest, and that she will give more milk and do better the coming season than if milked up to the time of calving. This is all true, and a reason sufficient in itself for drying off the cow some weeks before parturition; but there is another important reason for the practice, which is that the mixture of the old milk with the new secretion is liable to end in an obstinate case of garget. To prevent any ill effects from calving, the cow should not be suffered to get too fat, which high feeding after drying off might induce. The period of gestation is about two hundred and eighty-four or two hundred and eighty-five days. But cows sometimes overrun their time, and have been known to go three hundred and thirteen days, and even more; while they now and then fall short of it, and have been known to calve in two hundred and twenty days. If they go much over the average time, the calf will generally be a male. But cows are sometimes liable to slink their calves; and this usually takes place about the middle of their pregnancy. To avoid the evil consequences, so far as possible, they should be watched; and, if a cow is found to be uneasy and feverish, or wandering about away from the rest of the herd, and apparently longing for something she cannot get, she ought to be taken away from the others. If a cow slinks her calf while in the pasture with others, they will be liable to be affected in the same way. In many cases, physicking will quiet the cow’s excitement in the condition above described, and prove of essential benefit. A dose of one pound of Epsom or Glauber’s salts, and one ounce of ginger, mixed in a pint of thick gruel, should be given first, to be immediately followed by the salts, in a little thinner gruel. When a cow once slicks her calf, there is great risk in breeding from her. She is liable to do the same again. But when the slinking is caused by sudden fright or over-exertion, or any offensive matter, such as blood or the dead carcasses of animals, this result is not so much to be feared.