242 STATE JJOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. 



must not fiilter in eirovts for education, unless he would contiuue behind in the 

 race of life, in a country where all are born witli e(iual rights and privileges, 

 but press forward, conscious that, in so doing, they will develop a higlier degree 

 of manhood. Tiiis acconiplislied, and no occupation in life will oifer advan- 

 tages for the enjoyment of every faculty, both mental and pliysical, making uj) 

 the sum total of liuman wants, superior to those possessed by the farmer. The 

 wants of our country dcinund it. 



DISCUSSIOJT. 



Hon. AVm. Ball, of Hamburg, said : There is one thing in the essay that I 

 do not agree with. 1 do not think that tlie farmers as a class arc inferior in 

 point of education. 



Take the present audience for example; would they not in this respect bear 

 comparison with an audience from any other class of people. Was it not a 

 fact also that a very large proportion of our schools are taught by the sons and 

 daughters of farmers? He claimed for the farmers tliat in regard to general 

 intelligence, as a class they were not behind others, while at the same time 

 they all needed more education in the line of their work. 



Mr, llargcr replied that in the portion of the essay referred to by Mr. Ball 

 he was speaking of a class of farmers who were not represented at such a meet- 

 ing as this, and that there were very many of them of whom the remarks made 

 by him were entirely applicable. 



Prof, C. L. Ingersoll gave tlie following lecture on 



MILK FEVER IN DAIRY COWS. 



There is always a dread accompanying the attack of a disease, of the work- 

 ings of whicli Ave know 1_)ut little. This dread is usually increased by the 

 sudden attack, by its violence, its shortness of duration, or its fatality. Tiiis 

 disease of whicli I purpose to speak for a few moments is of tliis cliaracter, and 

 sometimes strikes down the animal in so short a time as to wholly unnerve and 

 astonish the owner. Before he has had time to do anything toward assistance 

 the animal may die. Diseases that afflict the ruminants are much the same in 

 character as those that afflict tlie human family, and may be classified as fol- 

 lows : 



]st. Contagious or epizootic diseases: those that pass from one to another 

 by means of infection ; and 



2d. Sporadic diseases or non-contagious: those where the seeds of disease 

 are engendered in the system, and being developed there, affect only the single 

 animal, dying with the animal, and not transmissible during sickness or after 

 the animal's death. 



To the first class belong the rinderpest of Europe, the foot and mouth dis- 

 ease lately so prevalent in Great Britain, the Texas cattle fever or splenic fever, 

 and other diseases of tliis cliaracter. 



To the second class belong milk fever or parturient apoplexy, pneumonia of 

 some kinds, and the ordinary diseases that are common and affect the single 

 animal. The losses that occur yearly from the diseases of the first class are 

 enormous, and medical treatment seems to have little effect, as a very large 

 percentage usually dies. When we are visited by one of these diseases we feel 

 that we are almost powerless, as individuals or communities, to take hold of 

 and try to stamp them out, much less to try and investigate the causes that 

 lead to such results. 



