230 The Cattle-Plague. 



On our land, then, it seems that artificial manure is beneficial 

 if properly used, for corn-crops ; I may say I have been fully 

 repaid by the quantity of straw I had for use during the last 

 most trying winter, which, when cut up into chaff, enabled me 

 to keep my stock in good condition throughout ; it also enabled 

 me to manure more land, so that the object I had in view at the 

 commencement has been fully accomplished. 



Wonston Manor, Hants. 



XXI. — Tlie Cattle-Plague.^ By HowAED Eeed. 



When the Royal Agricultural Society met last year upon the plea- 

 sant heights overlooking Plymouth Sound, no dread of coming 

 calamity disturbed the harmony of the occasion.! The pedi- 

 gree ^stock were committed to the railway authorities, with no 

 more than the usual apprehensions for their safety, and after their 

 customary retention were again returned to their pastures to 

 retire with their honours, or be further prepared for subsequent 

 exhibition. 



But the propositions of man do not always accord with the 

 dispositions of God. 



Had the stock-masters seen the letters passing at this 

 time between the Hoine Office and the Royal Veterinary 

 College, and connected the information they contained con- 

 cerning the appearance of a most unwelcome visitor, with 

 records of the past which lay entombed in the British Museum 

 Library, or in musty parish registers, they would have 

 looked with less complacency upon the future. The cloud, 

 then no bigger than a man's hand, has since ovei'spread the 

 heaven of his hope, and cast a gloomy shade over the farm 

 homesteads of Great Britain. Returning from this meeting 

 the exhibitor could scarcely have recrossed the threshold of his 

 home before the Lords in Council issued their first Order, which 

 announced the "recent appearance" of "a contagious or infec- 

 tious disorder of uncertain nature, prevailing within the metro- 

 polis, and in the neighbourhood," and advised measures to be 

 immediately taken " to prevent such disorder from spreading." 

 Within six months from that date anxiety has deepened into 

 despair. Thirty-six out of forty English counties are infected ; 



* The time has not yet arrived for the treatment of this subject in its entirety. 

 The progress and effects of the disease ■will be better discussed some time hence. 

 The writer has only ventured upon a sort of interim report, which has been pre- 

 pared at short notice. 



t It is now asserted by Professor Simonds, that during the very week of the 

 show a cow was being treated in Plymouth for rinderpest, though the farrier in 

 attendance did not then know what he had to deal with. 



