234 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



cf civil service appointment then he takes care of his position, because 

 when he ceases to enforce the law he is down and out. Think what the 

 expense would be, but after a while you would have less disease. You 

 could not do it in Iowa unless all States would agree to help you do this. 

 It should be a National law with the assistance of the States. It should be 

 taken up in a practical way. If we don't get laws this will be a dumping 

 ground for the other States. We should have efficient laws wherein we 

 say, you shall not bring into this State animals that are tubercular. 

 Dealers will bring their stock to Iowa because we have no law and they 

 can sell them. And I know of instances of that kind. If I was a hog 

 raiser I would, if I bought an animal, quarantine the animal for 

 thirty days before I put it in the herd, and it would be the last one to feed 

 and tend to after I had tended to the other hogs. I would put up a small- 

 pox sign, if necessary, to keep people away from it. And if there was hog 

 cholera in the neighborhood I would advise my neighbors to keep their 

 dogs tied up. Just those things carry tuberculosis and hog cholera. A 

 man may come along to a neighbor's, get into the hog lot and not know 

 there is any hog cholera or swine plague. He gets dirt on his shoes. Then 

 he comes over to your place, climbs up in the pen, whittles a stick and 

 cleans his shoes. He stands around the pen, the trough or the corn crib, 

 and the next thing you know you have hog cholera. You think you got it 

 from crows or buzzards or from a passing wagon. I know a place near 

 Perry where a breeder went to help a neighbor thresh. The neighbor had 

 hog cholera and left the carcasses lying in the stubble field. In two or 

 three weeks, just about time enough to get the hog cholera, the breeder 

 lost pretty nearly all he had. It can be carried in all sorts of ways. 



There is another thing that is important to me. That is the hog cholera 

 cures. I think they are an abomination. A man is just throwing his 

 money away. If the Department of Agriculture at Washington, working 

 for a good many years with scores of assistants who have not been able 

 to discover a serum or a vaccine, I do not believe that Tom, Dick or 

 Harry that starts up a store and fixes up a drug mixture has found a cure 

 for hog cholera. Nothing ever came by chance in such a way as that; you 

 are foolish to take up with such things. Of course they tell you they will 

 treat you honorably and you need not pay them a cent until they can get 

 the hogs under the effect of the remedy. The agent says it will take some 

 time, and I presume he will lock around and find out how many are lost. 

 If a man has a lot of pigs it will take a little longer for the drug to get 

 in its work. He takes the contract, and says he will pay you so much for 

 all the hogs that die. When the drug commences to work all the pigs are 

 dead. He does the same thing to the neighbor and does it right along. 

 Now, there are some who say you can get an immunity from vaccination, 

 but you must use an anti-toxine first. Ncrw what we mean by anti-toxine 

 is simply an anti-body or a body that acts against. You take it for zetanus 

 or lockjaw. Sometimes it lasts a long time and other times it lasts for 

 but a few months. In certain individuals it lasts longer than in others. 

 When you inoculate an animal that animal has a mild form of the disease, 

 lives through it, and after that is immune. I have heard it said it was a 

 good thing to have hog cholera around all the time. A hog that has been 

 vaccinated has a mild form of the disease and then it is an immune, has 



