THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



819 



Nature's beauties, whether in plants or animals, are 

 fed liberally; and in this regard she teaches the 

 cultivator to feed generously his soil, his crops, and 

 his stock. By so doing, his land and all its pro- 

 ducts will be the best of their kind, assuming good 

 common sense in the primary selection. Fences, 

 buildings, and farm implements should be made of 

 the most durable materials, that everything may 

 indicate the settled purpose of the owner to have 

 such an estate as will support a family in affluence 

 in all time to come. Permanency of occupation 

 and durability of improvements are material ele- 

 ments of agricultural beauty. A witty Englishman 

 has remarked, that in travelling through the United 

 States, most of the houses appear to have been put 

 up Saturday evening, with the expectation that they 

 were to be taken down Monday morning I Much 



of our farm improvements are of the same frail and 

 ephemeral character. We must learn to do our 

 work better, or we shall greatly damage the State 

 in which we live, by increasing its old fields, and 

 perhaps provoke the cui'ses of our own posterity. 

 To injure the soil over millions of acres is a wrong 

 of fearful magnitude. Would to God that we could 

 see some evidence that the evil will be any less during 

 the life-time of the writer. The error is too old and 

 deep-rooted for that. For a little immediate gain 

 in cotton or grain, our natural and valuable forests, 

 the soil, and the best interests of society are all 

 sacrificed ; as if to desolate the earth were man's 

 highest profit and greatest good ! Who will try to 

 remedy this obvious social disease, and foster the 

 study of the Beautiful in Agriculture. — American 

 " Southern Cultivator." 



P L E U II O - P N E U M O N I A 



At a late meeting of the Probus Farmers' Club, 

 Mr. William Trethewy in the chair — Mr. Karkeek 

 delivered an able and instructive lecture on 

 " Pleuro-pneumonia." 



Mr. Karkekk commenced by saying that 

 he felt it was unnecessary for him to make any 

 apology for introducing the subject; for although 

 Cornwall had been, comparatively speaking, free 

 from this dreadful murrain— in consequence of 

 Cornish farmers having been for the most part ex- 

 porters, rather than importers of live stock, and 

 therefore having but little intercourse with infected 

 districts — yet within the last few months the 

 disease had appeared in this county. He believed 

 he was correct in stating that the few cases which 

 had occurred in Cornwall might clearly be traced to 

 the introduction of cattle from some eastern coun- 

 ties, and might rightly be regarded as isolated 

 instances. It sometimes, however, happened with 

 respect to epizootic diseases, that there was a fulfil- 

 ment of the old proverb — " it never rains but it 

 pours ;" and he could safely verify the fact that 

 some of the disease which had affected our horses, 

 cattle, and sheep of late years, had come, not, as it 

 were, in single drops, but in a complete down- 

 pour. This had been particularly the case with 

 the "influenza" in horses, and the "vesicular 

 epizootie," a disease characterised by the formation 

 of vesicles on the tongue, lips, and feet of cattle 

 and sheep. The " variola ovina," or sheep-pox, 

 was another instance. This disease was imported 

 from foreign countries, and wherever it had ap- 

 peared it had killed its thousands. Fortunately 

 for Cornish farmers, it did not cross the Tamer. 

 He mentioned th.ese cases in order to warn his 

 hearers that, although the murrain known as 

 "pleuro-pneumonia" had not yet visited Cornwall 

 to any great extent, yet it behoved them to be 

 watchful and fearful, for e|)izootic diseases of all 

 kinds apj)eared to be borne on the wings of the 

 wind, and it was inpossible to say whence they 

 came or whither they were carried. In those coun- 

 tries in which the disease had prevailed, it had been 

 found extremely diflScult to track its course. So 



uncertain was its appearance, that it frequently 

 broke out without the introduction of strange 

 beasts, or any other assignable cause; and in a 

 few weeks it spread like wild-fire. In such cases 

 the atmosphere was regarded as the medium 

 through which the disease was conveyed. That 

 this disease existed on the continent for several 

 years before its appearance in England, was an 

 undoubted fact; and hence arose the question — 

 How did it reach England ? Was it by direct impor- 

 tation of foreign cattle ? or was the disease wafted 

 on the air, as had been the case with Asiatic cholera 

 and other similar pests ? In every instance of the 

 disease that had come under his own observation, 

 it was clearly traceal)le to direct importation of cat- 

 tle from other districts. But, as he had before ob- 

 served, the malady had been known frequently to 

 break out without any such direct and immediate 

 cause. Thus much of the disease, however, was 

 known — that it had prevailed in England, to a 

 greater or less extent, since 1842 ; that it had been 

 raging in Ireland for some twelve months before 

 that period ; that it was brought to the English 

 side of the channel by some half-starved Irish cat- 

 tle, and in a very short time it found its way into 

 Cheshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, and Middle- 

 sex ; that its ravages had been the most extensive 

 on marshy districts and in ill-ventilated crowded 

 cow-houses; and (a fact well deserving notice) 

 that the wide spread of pleuro-pneumonia was 

 occasioned by persons sending their beasts to 

 markets and fairs on its very first outbreak on 

 their premises. From the peculiar incubating 

 character of the disease, it was obvious that it 

 might be conveyed long distances during its forma- 

 tive stage. This was consistent with the sup- 

 position entertained by some medical men, that 

 malignant epidemics are the result of parasites — 

 vegetable or animal — each, after its own kind, 

 disturbing in sundry ways, the functions and the 

 structure of the bodies on which they subsist ; and 

 that the germs of disease thus caused may exist 

 for some considerable time before the appearance 

 of its outward symptoms. In pleuro-pneumonia it 



