40 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
ever. This is the case in no less than eight counties in Indiana. In 
Hillsborough, New Hampshire, there has been “less than for five 
years.” The correspondent in Franklin, Pennsylvania, says he “never 
heard of so little.” 
A few counties report an increase of mortality; among them McDuffie, 
in Georgia; Fayette, (50 per cent. greater from cold rains and scanty 
pasturage,) Bell, (less in sheep, more in cattle,) Milam, (50 per cent. 
loss from destruction of grass and drowning,) Galveston, and Leon, in 
Texas; Benton, Arkansas; Upshur, West Virginia; Marshall, (25 per 
cent. greater than last year,) Illinois; Barry, (owing to smutty corn,) 
Michigan ; Meeker, Minnesota; Lake, Catifornia, (three times as great) 
Alameda, (scarcity of food,) Stanislaus, (severity of the winter,) Tuo- 
Jumne, San Joaquin, in the same State. 
DISEASES OF CATTLE. 
Splenic fever.—The “ Texas cattle disease” has had few opportunities 
to display its malignity since the isolation and winter pasturage 
of droves in Western Kansas. It has been found unprofitable and 
impracticable to introduce them by boats via New Orleans and 
the Mississippi River, and the trade has quietly accommodated itself 
to what was a necessity, and at the same time a convenience and 
economy. 
A few facts illustrate the capabilities for mischief of the splenic infec- 
tion, and show how easily havoc might be spread again among the 
herds of the West. The following statement is from— 
Lincoln County, Kentucky.—There was a car-load of cattle brought here from Memphis, 
Tennessee, about the-1st of July, and after being here a few days seven of them died. 
The cattle in the pasture were taken out, and nothing more was heard of the disease 
until the middle of October, when it again broke out among the native cattle that had 
been pastured on the same grass, and some sixteen others died, and it again entirely 
ceased about Christmas. It was supposed that the cattle were partly Texas cattle, 
and that the disease was Texas fever. 
The report from Madison County, Ilinois, asserts that a drove of 
Texas cattle lost about ten head by what was supposed to be Spanish 
fever. The disease extended to native cattle and to hogs, which are 
supposed to have eaten of the carcasses of the Texan beeves. This 
statement is at variance with common experience as to the effects of 
the diseased meat upon swine. The correspondent in Floyd County, 
Indiana, says: ‘‘No Spanish fever has prevailed. Notwithstanding 
all that has been said on the subject, our people believe that the disease 
was brought here by Texas cattle, for it prevailed terribly year before 
last, when hundreds of southern cattle grazed in the county. ‘This 
year we have not had a case.” In Uvalde County, Texas, a loss of 12 
per cent. from Spanish fever is returned. It is stated that cattle 
became much diseased in 1868, and “observation proved the disease to 
be contagious,” and that change of range tends to restoration to health. 
In Clark County, Arkansas, several cattle were lost by being pastured 
in a field where a drove of Texas cattle had been. No disease was 
noticed in the drove. The report from. Independence County, while 
showing exemption from splenic fever during the past year, refers to 
the fearful ravages in 1868, by which the native cattle were nearly 
exterminated. Laws prohibiting the passage of Texas cattle have since 
kept the disease from the county. A few cases occurred in Butler, 
Crawford, Montgomery, and Neosho, in Kansas, and a larger number in 
Johnson. In Linn, Missouri, ninety-five died from feeding on the track 
of a drove of Texas cattle. In St. Louis a few cases occurred where 
Texas cattle had been pastured. A drover in Cole County, who supplied 
