THE BACTERIAL DISEASE OF CORX 213 



Possible Effect on Cattle. — Investigations made 

 in Nebraska^ by Dr. F. S. Billings, indicate the proba- 

 bility, and, in the opinion of Dr. B., the certainty, that 

 when cattle eat corn affected by this disease the germs 

 present may cause the illness, and sometimes the death 

 of the animals. He calls it the ^^ Cornstalk Disease in 

 Cattle," and concludes an elaborate report of his investi- 

 gations with this statement: '^When cattle become 

 unaccountably ill immediately after having been turned 

 into a stripped cornstalk field, and that illness is accom- 

 panied by the phenomena j)i'eviously detailed, it may be 

 taken for granted that it is this corn-fodder disease, and 

 no other." 



Treatment. — Xo method of preventing the disease 

 in corn has yet been suggested, except that of crop rota- 

 tion, and so little is known of what other plants are 

 attacked by the same germs that this is merely a sugges- 

 tion. Care should be taken that cattle are not turned 

 into fields of corn that have j)atches affected by the dis- 

 ease ; at least not until all such patches have been cut 

 and the fodder burned. 



Literature. — An account of Professor BurrilFs 

 iiivestigations may be found in the Proceedings of the 

 Tenth Meeting of the Society for the Promotion of Ag- 

 ricultural Science (1889, pp. 19-27), and in one of the 

 earlier Bulletins of the Illinois Experiment Station. 

 Dr. Billings' investigations are reported in the Bulletin 

 of the Nebraska Experiment Station (Nos. 7-10, pp. 

 165-210; June, 1889). 



