VETERINARY PROBLEMS. 37 



jour cows ; then it will not go through your stock." I tried 

 that, but it made no diflerence. Sometimes there would be 

 two or three cases in a week. That same season, I pur- 

 chased ten cows from the State of Vermont. They said, 

 " You must separate your cows, abortion is contagious." I 

 was not able to do it ; my barns were not sufficient to enable 

 me to separate all my herd. They said, " You will lose the 

 whole of them." But here is the result : those ten cows that 

 came from Vermont were all mixed in with this same herd, 

 side by side, and I never lost a calf from those cows. There 

 was a mystery about it. I have never been able to satisfy 

 myself about it. I think it is one of the most obscure things 

 that the farmers have to contend with. 



Question. Did you feed cotton-seed meal? 



Mr. Fay. No, sir ; cotton-seed meal was not known forty 

 years ago. I fed my milch cows with boiled potatoes and 

 meal and hay ; but I fed them no higher than cows ought to 

 be fed. 



Mr. BowDiTCH. I have made up my mind that this trou- 

 ble is very contagious, and the result is sometimes almost 

 instantaneous. I have always made it a practice, when I 

 suspect a heifer may miscarry, to isolate her at once. In 

 one case, a heifer was taken to a barn, some distance away 

 from the others of the herd, in which I had an old cow, which 

 had bred right regularly for seven years and was then about 

 six months gone. The heifer lost her calf, and in about an 

 hour from the time the calf was lost, this cow, which was 

 just across the floor, in a box stall, began to sniff and smell. 

 I watched her. She began to bellow, and appeared very un- 

 easy and restless, walking about in the stall, and in two 

 hours she lost her calf. In another case, where I had isolated 

 the animal, I thought it was perfectly safe to bring her 

 back, and did so, and put her by the side of the rest of my 

 milch cows, and in three clays from the time I brought her 

 back, although there was apparently no reason for it, — there 

 was no odor that could affect the other cows, and they had 

 taken no notice of her, — the cow in the stall next to her 

 lost a calf of only about six or seven weeks. I have studied 

 into the subject as far as I could, and the more I have 

 studied into it, the less I think I know. 



