356 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
efal attention. It has already gained a firm foothold in the East, and 
would undoubtedly invade the West very soon, or would have done so 
long ago, if the traffic in cattle were from East to West instead of from 
West to East. It may, however, at any time be carried to the West by 
shipments of blooded cattle from the Hast the same as it was imported 
from Holland to New York, and having once entered any of the Western 
States or Territories it will soon find ample means to spread toward the 
East again and to sweep the whole country. If it comes to that it will 
prove to be much more disastrous to the live-stock interest of the United 
States than swine-plague or any other contagious disease. 
If any transportation of, or traffic in, diseased and dead swine is ef- 
fectually prohibited by proper laws, a spreading of the swine-plague on 
a large scale will be impossible, and its ravages will remain limited to 
localities where the disease-germs have not been destroyed, and been 
preserved till the same find sufficient food again. In order to prevent 
such a local spreading, two remedies may be resorted to. The one is a 
radical one, and consists in destroying every sick hog or pig immediately, 
wherever the disease makes its appearance, and in disinfecting the in- 
fected premises by such means as are the most effective and the most 
practicable. If this is done, and if healthy hogs are kept away from 
such a locality, say for one month after the diseased animals have been 
destroyed, and the sties, pens, &c., disinfected with chloride of lime or 
carbolic acid, and the yards plowed, &c., the disease will be stamped 
out. I know that this is a violent way of dealing with the plague, but 
in the end it may prove to be by far the cheapest. The other remedy is 
more of a palliative character, and may be substituted if swine-plague, 
as is now the case, is prevailing almost everywhere, or in cases in which 
the radical measures are considered as too severe and too sweeping. It 
consists in a perfect isolation of every diseased herd, not only during 
the actual existence of the plague but for some time, say one month, 
after the occurrence of the last case of sickness, and after the sties and 
pens have been thoroughly cleaned and disinfected with carbolic acid 
or other disinfectants of equal efficiency, and the yards, &c., plowed. 
Old straw-stacks, &c., must be burned, or rapidly converted into ma- 
nure. It is also very essential that diseased animals are not allowed any 
access to running water, streamlets, or creeks accessible to other healthy 
swine. Those healthy hogs and pigs which are within the possible influ- 
ence of the contagious or infectious principle, perhaps on the same farm 
or in the immediate neighborhood of a diseased herd, must be pro- 
tected by special means. For these, I think, it will be best to make 
movable pens, say eight feet square, of common fence-boards (eleven 
fence-boards will make a pen); put two animals in each pen; place the 
latter, if possible, on high and dry ground, but by no means in an old 
hog-lot, on a manure-heap, or near a slough, and move each pen every 
noon to a new place, until after all danger has passed. If this is done 
the animals will not be compelled to eat their food soiled with exere- 
ments, and as dry earth is a good disinfectant, an infection, very likely, 
will not take place. Besides this, the troughs must always be cleaned 
before water or food is put in, and the water for drinking must be fresh 
and pure, or be drawn from a good well immediately before it is poured 
into the troughs. Water from ponds, or that which has been exposed 
in any way or manner to a contamination with the infectious principle, 
must not be used. If all this is complied with, and the disease notwith- 
standing should make its appearance and attack one or another of the 
animals thus kept, very likely it will remain confined to that one pen. 
If the hogs or pigs cannot be treated in that way, it will be advisable 
