140 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



of introducing this disease tliereby, unless circumstances 

 should unfortunately arise, by which it became as rife as 

 it was in the years 1813, 1814, and 1815. 



As the limits which are ordinarily assigned to reports 

 of this description may have possibly been exceeded, we 

 feel that it would not be right to make any observations 

 in addition which are not of a practical character, and 

 therefore we content ourselves by appending a summary 

 of the facts which have been ascertained by us in the 

 fulfilment of our mission. 



Conclusions. 



1. That all the countries of Northern and Western 

 Europe from which cattle are exported to England are 

 perfectly free from the rinderpest ; and that the only 

 disease of an epizootic or destructive nature which pre- 

 vails therein is the one known to us as pleuro-pneumo- 

 nia, which disease has existed here since 1841. 



2. That in the greater part of the official dispatches 

 and reports which have been forwarder! to the Govern- 

 ment, and by them transmitted to the Rojal Agricultu- 

 ral Society of England, the Rinderpest has been con- 

 founded with Pleuro-pneumonia, " JMilzbrand," and 

 other destructive mal (dies to which cattle are liable. 



3. That the Rinderpest is a disease which specially be- 

 longs to the Steppes of Russia, from which it fre- 

 quently extends, in the ordinary course of the cattle- 

 trade, into Hungary, Austria, Galicia, Poland, &c. 



4. That whenever circumstances have arisen which 

 called for the movements of troops, and consequently 

 the transit of large numbers of cattle, in Southern and 

 Eastern Europe, and particularly when Russian troops 

 have crossed the frontier of their territory, the disease 

 has been spread over a far greater extent of country. 



5. That the disease which has recently prevailed in 

 Galicia — where it was specially investigated by ourselves 

 — as well as in Poland, Austria, Hungary, theDanubian 

 Provinces, Bessarabia, Turkey, &c., is the true Rinder- 

 pest or Steppe Murrain of Russia. 



6. That with the exception of a few places in the 

 kingdom of Prussia and others in Moravia, near to the 

 frontier of Galicia and Poland, the disease in its out- 

 breaks of 1855, 1856, and 1857, did not extend to any 

 country lying westward of a line drawn from Memel on 

 the Baltic to Trieste on the Gulf of Venice. 



7. That, speaking in general terms, Rinderpest has not 

 existed in Central and Western Europe for a period of 

 forty-two years ; its great prevalence at that time being 

 due to the war which was being then carried on between 

 the different continental Kingdoms and States. 



8. That all the facts connected with the history of 



its several outbreaks concur in proving that the malady 

 does not spread from country to country as an ordinary 

 epizootic. And that, if it were a disease exclusively 

 belonging to this class, the sanitary measures which 

 are had recourse to throughout Europe would be in- 

 efficient in preventing its extension, and consequently 

 that in all probability we should long since have been 

 both painfully and practically familiar with it in this 

 country, as hundreds of our cattle would have suc- 

 cumbed to its destructive effects. 



9. That it is one of the most infectious maladies of 

 which we have any experience, and that it is capable of 

 being conveyed from animal to animal by persons and 

 various articles of clothing, &c., which have come in 

 contact with the diseased. 



10. That the ox tribe is alone susceptible to the dis- 

 ease ; and that the morbific matter on which it depen-ls 

 lies dormant in the system for a period of not less than 

 seven days, and occasionally, according to some con- 

 tinental authorities, as long as twenty days, before the 

 symptoms declare themselves. 



11. That an attack of the disease which has termi- 

 nated favourably renders the animal insusceptible to a 

 second action of the materies morbi which gives 

 origin to the pest. 



12. That the deaths often amount to 90 per cent. 



13. That the malady is one in which the blood is 

 early if not primarily affected ; and that subsequently 

 the mucous membranes throughout the entire body be- 

 come the principal scat of the morbid changes. 



14. That the symptoms are in general well marked 

 and quite characteristic of the affection. 



15. That all varieties of medical treatment which 

 have as yet been tried have failed in curing the disease ; 

 the recoveries which take place having for the most 

 part depended on the vis medicatrix naturce. 



16. That no fear need be entertained that this de- 

 structive pest will reach our shores. Its present great 

 distance from us would, of itself, afford a fair amount of 

 security ; but when we add to this that no cattle find tlieir 

 way from thence, directly or indirectly, to the English 

 market, and also that in the event of the disease spread- 

 ing from Galicia, it would have to break through hun- 

 dreds of military cordons, one after the other, before it 

 could possibly reach the western side of the German 

 states ; and, moreover, that for years past commerce has 

 been unrestricted with regard to skins, hides, bones, &c., 

 of cattle from Russia and elsewhere, all alarm, we be- 

 lieve, may cease with reference to its importation into 

 the British Isles. 



HALKETT'S GUIDEWAY STEAM AGRICULTURE. 



Our agriculturists live in the days of innovations. 

 Fast fading from the memory of our farmers — all slo%o 

 as they are said by some to be, but fortunately sure 

 withal — is the recollection of the good old times when 

 processes, and the implements by which they were 

 carried out, were handed down from one generation to 

 another, resembling the laws of the Medes and Persians 

 in this, that " they altered not." And, as the influence 

 of those steady times is gradually losing its hold on the 

 minds of our agriculturists as a body, their attention is 

 directed ever and anon by a succession of proposed in- 

 novations, fast flowing in, one upon another, to the 

 time coming— by some thought the "good," and by 

 others (who see only evil in any change) ruefully 

 ruminated upon — when innovations will be welcomed as 

 the signs of a healthy progress ; and not, as is too often 

 the case now, met with the sneer of the incredulous, 



and the one-sided investigations of the prejudiced. 

 Unpleasant, truly, is the position of the innovator. 

 He is generally examined as to his purposes and inten- 

 tions, as if these had for their aim the filching of men's 

 wealth from them, and the subversion of good order and 

 social morality. He is set up to be the fair mark of 

 the carping cabalist, exposed to dull jokes (as if a joke 

 could upset a theory, or be weighed as equal in value 

 with a fact), to be sneered at as a dreamer, and perhaps 

 to have his very sanity placed in doubt. Yet the world 

 is hugely indebted to innovators. It is now reaping the 

 fruits of the thought of schemers, such as Watt, Fulton, 

 Stephenson, and Wheatstone. Sneered at as vain en- 

 thusiasts, or denounced as the robbers of the poor man's 

 bread, we find these " innovations" on tlie practice of 

 their day, unostentatiously yet powerfully at work, 

 clothing the nations, ministering to our wants, and 



