388 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



through pipes and hose into the nnraerous tronghs. In the early part 

 of Augiist, 1878, Mr. Fisher sokl two hundred hogs and pig.s at auction, 

 "which sale reduced his herd to seventy-eight head, the number of which 

 it consisted when swine x^lague invaded his phice. When the first case 

 occiu-red most of the seventy-eight animals were running out in the 

 pasture, and there, it must be supposed, most of the animals that were 

 taken sick became infected; at least but a few new cases of disease 

 occurred after the hogs were kept up again in their yards and pens. 

 Although Mr. Fisher did not use any medicines whatever, his total loss 

 amounted to thirty-three head out of seventy-eight ; forty -five head re- 

 mained exempted (most of them) or recovered (a few), while his nearest 

 neighbor, Mr. Miller, lost two hundred and thirty-seven animals out of 

 two hundred and forty. Fisher's sanitary arrangements were good — 

 nearly perfect — and his herd was divided into small lots, none of them 

 numbering more than five or six animals, while Mr. Miller's hogs and 

 shoats were all in one herd. Comment will ]iot be necessary. 



Mr. F. Brauer, at Gap Grove, had, in the early part of January, one 

 hundred and forty hogs and shoats in two yards, separated by a fence- 

 sixty barrows in one yard and about eighty sows in the other. Mr. 

 Brauer's nearest neighbors west and east live only a little more than a 

 quarter of a mile from his house ; the neighbors northwest and south- 

 east are farther away, and due north and south no house is nearer than 

 a mile. Swine plague prevailed or had been prevailing between Sep- 

 tember and January, on every farm adjoining Mr. Brauer's. On his 

 place the two swine-yards, which are side by side and destitute of any 

 old straw stack and of half-rotten piles of old straw or hay, are on high 

 gTound sloping toward the east, and are protected toward the west by 

 barns, stables, and sheds. The food consists of corn from a corn-crib, 

 which constitutes a part of the northern fence or inclosure of the yard 

 occupied by the barrows, and the water for drinking is pumped by a 

 windmill liom a deep well, and conducted through iron pipes into the 

 troughs. On the morning of January 6, one of the barrows was found 

 dead, and presented at the post mortem examination, which was made 

 immediately, just such morbid changes as are characteristic of swine 

 plague. The infectious pruiciple, it is sui)posed, had been introduced 

 by some horses which were running at large, jumping fences, and in 

 the habit of visiting all the swine-yards and corn-cribs in the whole 

 r»eighborhood in search of corn. Mr. Brauer, to avoid greater losses 

 after that one barrow had died, sold and shipped immediately forty-six 

 of his barrows, so that only thirteen animals remained in the north- 

 ern yard. The latter was cleaned at once, and disinfected by a 

 liberal sprinkling with diluted carbolic acid once a day, on January 0, 

 7, and 8. The thirteen barrows in the northern yard and the eighty 

 sows in the southern yard have remained healthy, and no new cases 

 have occurred. 



Mr. Swigart, in Palmyra Township, kept his hogs and cattle (steers 

 to be fattened) in a yard which contained two old straw stacks, and 

 was well littered with half rotten straw and hay. When I \isited his 

 place the first time, on the 14th of January, fourteen hogs had died, 

 several were sick, and some apparently yet healthy. The first cases 

 had occurred only a week or two jirevious. The diseased hogs were all 

 bleeding from the nose. I advised Mr. Swigart to immediately separate 

 the apparently healthy animals from the sick ones by removing them 

 to a non-iufect«d place, and give to each animal twice a day about 

 ten drops of carbohc acid in the water for drinking. This advice was 



