10 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER 
serial literature, industrial and commercial, is also explored for the ex- 
tension, comparison, and verification of results. Difficult and arduous 
as are the labors required, and small as are the pecuniary means appro- 
priated to the purposes of this division, abundant testimony is received 
of its comparitive efficiency and practical value. 
CATTLE DISEASES. 
I have heretofore called attention to the imperative necessity for es- 
tablishing a division of veterinary surgery in this Department. The 
value of stock lost annually from disease is enormous, and threatens not 
only to decimate our animals, but to expose the human family to disease 
‘from the consumption of unwholesome meats. Neglect of animals, and 
their overcrowding in transportation, are prolific sources of disease, and 
its spread is permitted by the ignorance of a majority of the present 
class of veterinarians. Another class of disease arises from causes but 
obscurely known, if known at all, and these fatal maladies are as yet 
without any indicated effort of cure, rendering necessary the barbarous 
plan of stamping out, recommended and adopted in other countries as 
well as our own, as the only means of saving the agriculturist or stock- 
raiser from total ruin. 
A quarto edition of the reports arising from the cattle-diseases inves- 
tigation, conducted under the auspices of this Department, some of 
them never before published, is in course of publication. The volame 
will include reports as follows: A prefatory report to Congress by the 
Commissioner of Agriculture ; one upon pleuropneumonia; on the effects 
oi smut and other fungous growths upon corn and forage ; the periodic 
or splenic fever of cattle, (the Texas cattle disease;) the pathological 
anatemy and histology of the respiratory organs; microscopic examina- 
tions of cryptogamic growths in fluids of diseased animals; and the 
statistical history of the Texas cattle disease. These reports will be 
illustrated by numerous chromo-lithographs, micro-photographs, copper- 
plate and wood engravings, the work of the best artists, from originals 
prepared in the office of the Surgeon General of the United States. 
ENTOMOLOGY. 
The correspondence of the entomological division has largely increased - 
during the year, inquiries in regard to noxious insects having been re- 
ceived from ail parts of the country. 
The cotton army-worm appears to have been less destructive than ~ 
usual, and few complaints of loss from other cotton insects have been 
made, while insects injurious to fruits and vegetables have been unu- 
sually numerous and destructive. 
It is in contemplation to publish, whenever suitable authority is given 
for the printing and illustration, a work on entomology, prepared by the 
entomologist of the Department, in which known American insects of 
each order will be accurately figured upon copper-plate, and which has 
