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starvation, whole communities leave their cattle to shift for themselves every 
winter, until one of such severity as the last takes pity on their misery and mer- 
cifully ends it. The loss from actual starvation and exposure the past winter 
has been extraordinary. 
In the mild climate of Texas the loss has been heavy. In Houston county 
one-tenth of the stock died during the winter from “cold weather and poverty.” 
Other counties made simular reports. 
In the Territories similar losses are reported. 
In Hall county, Nebraska, one-tenth of the cattle perished during the winter 
“in consequence of the ground being covered with snow from the middle of 
December until the first of April.” 
In Mississippi county, Arkansas, “ one-fourth died of starvation im consequence 
of inundation.” 
In Houston county, Minnesota, “there has been no disease among the cattle, 
but many are dying for want of proper feeding, in consequence of the failure of 
the corn crop. Hay is scarce and farmers have depended on straw, as usual, 
and the quality of the latter is quite poor.” 
In Pocahontas county, West Virginia, “many cattle died from exposure.” 
Such is the tenor of letters from the south and the younger States of the west. 
The aggregate loss must amount to an immense sum, and most of it was plainly 
avoidable with proper expenditures of foresight and industry. 
DISEASES OF HORSES. 
Horses have suffered comparatively little from disease during the past year. 
Very few cases of disease are reported from New England. In the middle 
States, reports of glanders and lung fever are made from a few counties. In the 
south there is more complaint of glanders than elsewhere, every State having 
been afflicted by it—in some places with great severity—early last season. This 
disease seemed to be a legacy left by the war; but it is now rapidly disappear- 
ing. West Virginia, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, and Kansas, appear to be 
nearly free from disease; while the central States of the Ohio valley furnish 
occasional instances of glanders and lung fever. In Texas several counties have 
suffered from “loin distemper,’ which does not affect geldings, though both sexes 
are subject to it. 
In Addison county, Vermont, an unusual disease made its appearance, intro- 
duced by a span of fine horses from Boston. A correspondent says: “The 
horses must have taken the disease on the cars, for they left no traces of it in 
the stable from which they came, It was but a few days since that I learned 
anything of it; it is represented as taking the flesh off rapidly. It passed 
through a stable of twelve horses, owned by the man to whom the Boston 
horses were sent, and has now made its appearance among the horses of his near 
neighbors. I do not learn that it has proved fatal in any case. Its name and 
character, as well as treatment, are yet to be developed.” 
In Morris county, New Jersey, several horses died “from a disease supposed 
to be pleuro-preumonia.” All the caseg proved fatal. 
In Jefferson county, New York, a “horse distemper’ 
very fatal. 
A mortality, estimated at one-third of the colts foaled this spring, in Ozaukee 
county, Wisconsin, is reported. The disease is attended with swelling of the 
joints. 
In Grant county, Wisconsin, there have been instances of a disease of the eye. 
The “ big-head” prevails among horses in Pulaski county, Illinois. 
In Clinton county, Illinois, about two hundred of the best horses “have died 
of a new disease. The horse becomes very sick, with quick breathing and 
pulse, and cold extremities, followed by death in twenty-four hours. No remedy 
? 
is prevalent, but not 
