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IMMIGRATION. 
A casual correspondent writing from Santa Barbara, California, says : 
The lower coast country of the State, settled since 1770, and for a long time neglected, is 
now receiving a large accession of farming population of Americans and Germans; some 
30,000, it is estimated, have come in since last summer between Monterey and San Diego. 
Below Point Conception every one of the Mediterranean fruits and plants are cultivated, as 
well as in Italy or Syria, and wheat and barley of No. 1 quality. 
SPANISH FEVER. 
The following is from our reporter in Ralls county, Missouri : 
As early as 1853, a large trade in Mexican and various grades of Spanish eattle was estab- 
lished, and many enterprising stock men of this county engaged in it. In the latter part of 
the spring following a fatal disease, called Spanish fever, broke out in those sections of the 
country where these foreign cattle had been kept in the preceding fall, confined entirely to the 
native herds. This scourge soon ran its course in 1854 and disappeared; but in each suc- 
ceeding year the same trade was continued, followed by the same special developments until 
1858, when it seemed not only our native stock but the foreign also were smitten with this 
terrible malady. Not only cattle but horses and sheep also seemed in this year liable to the 
contagion. 
The. type of the disease was alike, and the same symptoms and fatal results followed. An 
acute inflammatory fever, with loss of strength, fleshand appetite, with wildness, in some 
instances amounting to madness, were the general symptoms. No certain remedies were 
found, though among young animals good nursing and shelter, if quiet and rest could be 
secured, would generally avail. The wide-spread disaster, endangering the whole stock of 
the county, in 1858, put an end to the trade without any special effort. Since that time we 
have not been troubled with Spanish fever as an epizoétic. There was one peculiarity to be 
observed in the spread of the disease ; it never crossed a considerable stream except with the 
Spanish cattle, so that one side of a river might be infected and the other healthy. Ordi- 
narily, too, it was confined to the prairie, and water-courses passing through or near it, 
rarely, if ever, penetrating an extensive wood region. Thus, in this county, in the Missis- 
sippi belt of timber, averaging some 15 milesin breadth,. a case of Spanish fever in epizodtic 
form is unknown; and so of Salt river belt, a timber region of from four to six miles in 
breadth. 
MINERALS DISCOVERED. 
Jackson parish, Louisiana.—Mr. Kent M. Dowden, of Indiana, has been pros- 
pecting in our parish, and has discovered good lead ore and coal, specimens of 
which I will send youas soon as an opportunity offers. He has also traced a belt of 
curious land which extends nearly the entire length of our parish, and is not in 
any. place more than three miles wide, in which he finds whole trees of large 
size completely petrified. The subsoil of this belt is red clay, and on top of 
that is 28 or 30 inches of alluvial, and the petrifactions appear to be between 
the alluvial and the clay. The present growth of timber is pine forest and 
oak, with heavy and thick undergrowth. Mr. Dowden has specimens of these 
petrifactions, which will also be sent to you as soon as possible. 
PROTECTION AGAINST WOOL-BUYERS. 
The isolation of farmers favors imposition by combination for the purchase 
of their products ; and in nothing do they suffer greater injustice than in the 
arbitrary rules either tacitly agreed upon or adopted openly in convention by 
professional wool-buyers. The evil has been growing, until its proportions are 
now. monstrous and unendurable; and it becomes necessary, in the present 
unprofitable era in wool-growing particularly, that this department should use 
its influence in opposition to injurious combinations. 
The Woollen Manvfacturers’ Association of the Northwest met in Chicago on 
the 19th of February last, and adopted the following preamble and resolutions : 
Whereas it is for the interest of both the grower and manufacturer of wool, as well as a 
protection to the honest grower, that a uniform standard should be adopted throughout the 
