Commissioner of Agriculture 331 



were investigated by Dr. R. C. Reed of Elmira on behalf of the 

 state and Dr. Johnson on behalf of the federal government. Dr. 

 Reed reported that J. A. Ainsley bought these cattle from a drove 

 on November 6 and others on the ninth, and on Xovember 11 found 

 them ill. The sick cattle showed more or less advanced lesions 

 in the mouth, but no blisters, merely raw or partially healed sores, 

 of size and form that might have been caused by the eruptions of 

 foot and mouth disease. One had slobbered considerably. An 

 adjoining herd (A. C. Townsend's) showed similar lesions, one 

 cow having an ulcerous sore across the dental pad on the front of 

 the upper jaw of two inches in length, and one calf having a large 

 space near the tip of the tongue denuded of the cell covering, be- 

 sides smaller sores on the dental pad and angle of the mouth. 

 Another was weak and bloodless. There were no lesions in either 

 herd on feet or teats. There were no sheep on either place, so 

 that the test of infection of other ruminants was not available. 

 Seven animals had been taken in from the passing drove and, as 

 seven animals from the infected Grobe drove in Erie County were 

 at that date unaccounted for, there was some possibility that they 

 had reached Yates County. 



Having secured the name and address of the drover, O. P. 

 Persons of Himrods, Dr. Reed spent some days in tracing the 

 source of the drove around Catherine," Alpine, Odessa, etc., in the 

 southern part of Schuyler County, and its route north by Dundee, 

 Himrods, etc., to Penn Yan. From this it appeared that ns 

 disease was found in any of the herds where cattle from the Per- 

 sons herd had been left, nor in those where it had stayed over 

 night while being driven north. 



Meanwhile, Drs. Johnson and Reed had inoculated a calf intro- 

 duced from healthy stock into the Townsend herd for the pur- 

 pose, and by December 2 ample time had been allowed for the 

 development of the disease. On that date I visited the suspected 

 herds and was fully satisfied, from the history, lesions and experi- 

 ments, that there was no foot and mouth disease present. The 

 mouth lesions still existed, though in the intervening twenty-one 

 days since their discovery there had been more than ample time 

 for the healing of the lesions of aphthous fever. They showed, 

 moreover, on an average, a difference in size, being mostly smaller 

 than those of the contagious disease, while their indisposition tc 



