78 ANNUAL REPORT, OF THE Off. Doc. 



fectcd, but these regulations are not sufficiently far-reaching to make 

 it possible to ship hogs from one part of (he country to another with 

 any degree of safety. To sliip hogs in ordinary stock cars and to 

 pass them through stockyards is practically certain to cause them 

 to become infected with this disease. On this account, the business 

 of bringing young hogs from the west to Pennsylvania for sale to 

 farmers who may wish to rear and fatten them is rapidly becoming 

 extinct. Experienced persons realize that hogs shipped in num- 

 bers must be slaughtered within a short time after shipment and 

 before the termination of the period of incubation for hog cholera. 

 Pure-bred hogs shipped by express are less exposed, and their trans- 

 portation is accompanied by less danger. 



When an outbreak of hog cholera occurs, the members of the in- 

 fected herds are quarantined so that they may not distribute dis- 

 ease, and the quarantine is continued until the local outbreak has 

 been repressed and the premises have been disinfected. 



Texas Fever: Texas fever formerly prevailed very extensively 

 in Pennsylvania. As it was brought to this State by southern cattle 

 every year, the annual infection of Pennsylvania herds caused enor- 

 mous losses and continued until about fifteen years ago, when the 

 United States Government, through the Department of Agriculture, 

 forbade the shipment of cattle from certain portions of the south 

 to the north, excepting for immediate slaughter, and excepting during 

 a part of the winter. These regulations were made when the cause 

 of Texas fever was discovered and when it was proven that the dis- 

 ease is produced by a parasite that grows in the blood, and which 

 is carried to, and inoculated upon, susceptible cattle by means of the 

 young cattle tick. The young cattle ticks spring from eggs of the 

 mature ticks which are brought north upon the skins of southern 

 cattle. 



The regulations of the United States Department of Agriculture 

 have beeen based upon this discovery and have been changed and 

 developed from year to year until they now serve to almost w^holly 

 protect northern cattle from the ravages of Texas fever. Indeed, it 

 is probable that there would be no Texas fever whatever among the 

 cattle of the northern states if the regulations of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture were fully observed. An outbreak of 

 Texas fever in a northern state can, in almost every known instance, 

 be traced to a violation of the regulations of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture. During the past ten years Texas fever 

 has occurred in Pennsylvania three times, twice among cattle that 

 had been recently returned to Pennsylvania after having been exhib- 

 ited at live stock shows in the south and in the instance that is here 

 recorded. 



The regulations of the United States Department of Agriculture 

 provide that cattle south of a prescribed quarantine line, running 

 across the entire United States from east to west, shall not be driven 

 or shipped to points north of the quarantine line excepting during 

 the period from the fifteenth of November to the first of February, 

 or, at other seasons, excepting for immediate slaughter. It is 

 further provided, that when any cattle in course of transportation 

 from said area are unloaded above this line to be fed or watered, 

 or for any other purpose, said cattle shall be placed in pens or yards 

 set apart for infected cattle and no other cattle shall be admitted 



