478 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



and this statement seems to have been accepted by many writers without 

 question or discussion. The first importation of Spanish Merinos for 

 breeding purposes is reported to have been made in the year 1808, but 

 the disease had become well established in this country prior to that 

 time. Another reason for considering sheep frcfm Spain very improbable 

 as ori^nators of the disease upon American soil is the fact that the sheep 

 of Spain have been remarkably free from foot-rot. It is even asserted 

 that it has never been seen on the dry table-lands which constitute the 

 pastures of the entire region south of the Pyrenees. Spanish Merinoa 

 may have introduced the disease here, but it is very probable that they 

 were first shipped from Spain to some other country, and thence, after a 

 longer or shorter stay in their new home, reshipped, together with an Infec- 

 tion of foot-rot, to America. It has been historically stated that the 

 first settlers who attempted to establish flocks of sheep upon the prairie 

 farms of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois met with most disheartening ex- 

 periences, which were in a measure due to the spread of foot-rot. In 

 the year 1797 an agricultural settlement was made in Illinois by farmers 

 from the eastern colonies, who brought with them flocks and herds of the 

 sheep and cattle common to the section of the country whence they came. 

 During the decade following many new homes were established in the 

 prairie regions, and a number of the settlers brought with them founda- 

 tion stock with the intention of growing large flocks of sheep, but wolves 

 and panthers proved to be very destructive, and liver disease and foot- 

 rot also hindered the establishment of large bands, until finally the 

 pioneers were forced to be content with small flocks that could be con- 

 stantly housed, guarded, and given careful attention. 



The farmers of Maryland and Virginia were taking an increasing 

 interest at this time in improved sheep. They had many discouraging 

 conditions to contend with, and although it is possible that foot-rot was 

 not known among their flocks at this time, it is certain that much trouble 

 was caused by the appearance of "diseases, dogs and wolves," and that 

 contagious foot-rot made itself known and feared as early as 1832 in 

 these states. 



Owing to the imperfect knowledge at that time of matters pertaining 

 to bacterial diseases, the sheep owners struggled against the spread of 

 foot-rot in their flocks somewhat unsuccessfully, and it often required 

 constant watchfulness and persistent treatment for three or four years 

 to eradicate the disease after it had become thoroughly established upon 

 the premises of the sheep grower. 



Later than this, in the late fifties and early sixties, there was a 

 marked revival of interest in sheep raising throughout the middle west, 

 and at this time many who had previously devoted their energies ex- 

 clusively to grain or to cattle and hogs, concluded to change over to 

 sheep, and the resulting traffic in these animals caused them to be moved 

 about over the country roads and into new sections of the agricultural 

 regions in numbers never before equaled. In several instances these trav- 

 eling flocks carried foot-rot with them and infected the fiocks with which 

 they came in contact along their routes. The states of Ohio, Michigan 

 (southern), Illinois and Iowa were most seriously infected, and in all 

 of them the disease secured such firm foothold that several years of 



