BUEEAU OF ANIMAL. INDUSTRY. 137 



In the territory already released from quarantine there remain 

 here and there a few infested premises or centers of tick infestation 

 which must be held under control until the last tick can be put out of 

 existence. This condition, taken in conjunction with the effort to 

 eradicate ticks from additional areas still under Federal quarantine, 

 means that Federal and State funds have to be spread very thinly 

 over a very large territory. It is therefore difficult to concentrate 

 efforts in certain areas to such a degree as was done a few years ago. 

 The cost of tick eradication is much greater than it was then and less 

 can be accomplished with the same appropriation. County appro- 

 priations will have to be greatly increased if satisfactory results are 

 to be obtained. 



Independence County, Ark., has furnished an example of the 

 obstacles and difficulties sometimes encountered in tick eradication 

 in certain areas. In that county, where tick eradication was far 

 advanced, an inspection of cattle in March, 1922, showed general 

 tick infestation in an area of approximately 400 square miles and 

 that local inspectors were neither dipping the cattle nor reporting 

 the refusal of the cattle owners to clip. Accordingly the county 

 authorities were requested to procure dipping material and employ 

 men to dip the cattle. The first week that these county men were 

 assigned to duty two of them were shot from ambush, one being 

 killed and the other seriously wounded. Unknown persons then 

 posted notices throughout this area and at dipping 'vats to the effect 

 that any person who came into that portion of the county to enforce 

 cattle dipping would receive similar treatment. The result waa 

 that all county ins|)ectors stopped work. 



To meet this condition of opposition to State law, a number of 

 young men who had seen military service abroad and who were not 

 residents of that county were selected and properly equipped with 

 means of defense and with horses, camps, bedding, and every facility 

 for protecting themselves as well as Federal, State, and county 

 propert}'. These men could not obtain board locally, as any person 

 who would take them in was threatened with the destruction of his 

 residence and property, and consequently they had to live in camps. 

 All the dipping vats had be?n dynamited by the outlaw element, and 

 it was necessary for the county to construct a dipping vat, which 

 was placed under the protection of these employees. The ex-service 

 men chose to ride in a formation known as " threes," two ahead and 

 one some distance in the rear, in order to avoid an attack from ambush. 

 In this formation the men regularly called on every cattle owner 

 and instructed him to have all his cattle at this one dipping vat on a 

 certain date at a certain hour, and further notified him that if the 

 cattle were not there it would be their duty to come and get them at 

 his expense. As a result of this plan all cattle in that area have been 

 dipped regularly every 14 days since the first of May up to the time 

 of closing this report. No further attacks or fatalities have occurred^ 

 and it is believed that by this means tick eradication can be completed 

 in an area where systematic dipping was previousl}^ considered im- 

 possible. 



