- 
24 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
contagious diseases among domesticated animals in this country has 
been very rapid, and increasingly malignant and destructive. So wide- 
spread and fatal had many of them become that I determined, a year 
ago or more, to institute a preliminary investigation looking to a dis- 
covery of the cause and a remedy for some of the more virulent and 
destructive of these maladies. No funds being available for this purpose, 
all that could be done was to open a correspondence with leading stock- 
raisers throughout the country, hoping thereby to elicit information 
touching the annual losses of farm stock from the various diseases 
incidental to this class of property, the character of the maladies most 
prevalent and fatal, and what remedies, if any, were used. A large 
number of circular letters were forwarded to the regular correspondents 
of the department, and to many others engaged exclusively in stock- 
raising. Replies were received from every section of the country. 
These letters contained much valuable information, which was called 
for by resolution of the United States Senate, February 20, 1877, and by 
you forwarded to the President of the Senate on the 27th day of the 
same month. (See Ex. Doc. No. 35, Forty-fifth Congress, second 
session.) By reference to this volume, a few copies only of which were 
printed, a tabular statement will be found which gives returns of annual 
losses of domesticated animals in 1,125 counties out of 2,447, the whole 
number of counties contained in the United States. 
These returns are as accurate as could be given in the absence of an 
absolute census, but for less than one-half the Territory of the United 
States they show annual losses amounting to $10,091,483 in swine alone, 
and for all other classes of domesticated animals the losses are given for 
the same counties at $6,561,945, making a grand total of $16,653,428. 
These figures indicate that the losses of farm animals throughout the 
United States annually aggregates the sum of $30,000,000 or more. As 
at least two-thirds of this amount seemed to be sustained in the loss of 
swine from affections which appeared tc be but little understood by the 
farmer and stock-raiser, I regarded the subject of sufficient importance 
to call for an appropriation to defray the expenses of a scientific investi- 
gation into the causes of many of the more malignant, infectious and 
contagious diseases of domesticated animals, but more especially of those 
incident to swine. 
The sum of $10,000 was appropriated for this purpose, and as soon as 
the fund was available examiners were appointed in the States of New 
York, Indiana, Ilinois, lowa, Kansas, Missouri, and North Carolina, 
These examiners were instructed to devote the brief time allotted them 
to an investigation of diseases of swine, as I did not regard the amount 
of the appropriation sufficient to cover the additional expense of an 
investigation of infectious and contagious diseases incident to other 
classes of farm animals. 
By reference to the returns above alluded to it will be seen that th 
annual losses of swine are heaviest in some of the above-named States, 
