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termination, in some instances, in two or three days; in others, a week; in 
others still, ten or twelve days. 
It is a singular fact not only that the migrating herds improve in condition 
while disseminating the disease, but that such disease does not prevail, if it even 
exists, in the localities from which the cattle originate. Yet their bodies must 
contain the germ of disease, the virulent animal poison which is communicated 
by their excretions to the pastures upon which their victims feed after them. 
The conditions necessary for the a oemeut of this poison are found in the 
latitude of southern Kansas and Missouri, in the more elevated sections of 
Arkansas, in parts of Tennessee, in southern Kentucky, in North Carolina, and 
the hill lands of Georgia and South Carolina. It is not reported further north 
than southern Illinois, and not known in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Maryland. 
A convincing proof that its development is referable in some way to climate is 
shown by a fact mentioned by a correspondent of its existence in the mountain 
lands of Georgia, generated by removal scarcely fifty miles away from the low 
lands. , 
That it is not produced by travel is evident, else cattle driven from Iowa to Ohio 
should sometimes show symptoms of it. More conclusive still is the fact that 
Texas cattle, driven to New Orleans, do not communicate the disease to the cat- 
tle of Louisiana. A correspondent mentions a fact which may be regarded as a 
marked corroboration. Eight hundred Texas cattle were last season driven into 
Mississippi county, Arkansas, and were scattered through the county without 
producing disease. This county lies in a latitude sufficiently high to awaken 
an expectation of a fatal result of such a migration; but it is on the Mississippi 
‘river, In a miasmatic region. It is possible that this suggestion covers the rea- 
son for the non-development of the disease. 
A slip has been received from advance proofs of the Southern Cultivator for 
May, containing a letter from an experienced cattle drover relative to this dis- 
ease, which shows that Florida cattle, as well as those from Texas, are capable 
of producing the disease under the proper climatic conditions. The letter is as 
follows : : ‘ 
ATHENS, GEorGIA, April, 1867. 
Epirors SouTHERN CuLTivaTor: Mr. Isaae Newton, the Commissioner of 
Agriculture, desires information in regard to the cattle fever, or Spanish fever, 
as it is generally called. I have been a cattle dealer for 25 or 30 years, and in 
that time have had many a death among my stock by this disease, and have in 
consequence taken some notice, meanwhile endeavoring to learn its causes and 
how it was brought about. 
I notice that cattle scarcely ever take the fever if let remain where they were 
raised, and I am fully convinced it is generally brought on by a change of eli- 
mate. For instance, you take cattle from the mountain country to the low coun- 
try and they will take the fever in a short time and die, but their disease will 
not affect the cattle raised there; but, on the other hand, take cattle raised in 
what we call a distempered part of our country—that is, the low country—from 
warm latitudes, up into a colder one, they will themselves improve all the time ; 
but, without being sick themselves, they will spread the fever and kill the cattle 
in the section of country into which they are taken, till they travel on, or stay 
or have staid long enough for the fever to leave the system. I have been in the 
habit of driving cattle from Florida to Virginia, and found my cattle to improve 
and do well; but after I passed the line of 34 degrees, they began to spread 
the fever all along the line of travel among the stock raised in that section of 
the country, till 1 struck the line of Virginia, which is a distance of about 250 
miles, then it ceased, and all went on well. I suppose the reason for its stop- 
ping was, that my cattle had been out of the low country long enough to be- 
come acclimated. Hence, I think the disease is originated from a change of 
