390 EEPOET OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



vailing, contains one or more rendering-tanks, and men who speculate 

 upon tlie credulity of the farmer when in distress, and try to sell him 

 a "sure cure for hog cholera" at an enormous price. I know a large 

 number of farmers who paid from $30 to $00 for a w^orthlesS prescrip- 

 tion, and others who paid as much as $100 for worthless medicines, 

 composed of substances that can be bought in the market for about $5. 

 These persons — the tank-men and the "sure-cure men" — find it in their 

 interest to keep the farmer ignorant, to prejudice his mind, and to pre- 

 Tent, if possible, a thorough investigation. So it happens that many 

 farmers deny the existence of the disease if approached by a stranger, 

 or are asked questions concerning the health of their hogs. A great 

 many farmers have also another motive for keeping the existence of 

 swine plague a secret. They sell their hogs and pigs for whatever they 

 can get, and ship them to Chicago as soon as the well-known disease 

 makes its appearance. In Chicago, however, the city board of health 

 is at present more vigilant than formerly, and condemns a few diseased 

 hogs almost every day. This has had a good effect, in so far as the 

 buyers have become a little shyer and more careful, and refuse to buy 

 every diseased animal that is offered ; they have also commenced to in- 

 quire where the diseased hogs are shipped from, and where swine plague 

 is existing. The farmers and country dealers who send them are, there- 

 fore, interested in denying and concealing the existeuce of the disease. 

 Some farmers, to my certain knowledge, have even stooped so low as 

 to sell and ship their diseased hogs, not in their own name, but in that 

 of some irresponsible person, and don't like to hear swine plague men- 

 tioned. Consequently, any investigation of the disease is exceedingly 

 difficult and almost impossible, unless the investigator is either per- 

 sonally known or introduced by a citizen who commands the confidence 

 of his community. Not being personally acquainted in any of those 

 counties in which the disease, according to information received, was 

 prevailing to au extent sufficient for my purpose, I chose a place w^ere 

 I could procure such an introduction. I happened to be acquainted 

 with one of the most prominent and influential citizens of Henderson 

 comity, Mr. James Peterson, at Oquawka, who, on corresponding with 

 him, invited me to his place, stated that he would take gTcat interest in 

 my investigation, and promised to go with me through the county and 

 introduce me to the farmers whose herds had become affected. His in- 

 vitation, of course, was accepted, and as his promise has been fully 

 redeemed, his kind ofter has considerably facilitated my work. One 

 other reason induced me to select Henderson County. I considered it 

 of some importance to observe the disease in different localities, differ- 

 ent at least as to soil and drainage. In most of the places in which I 

 carried on my former investigations, the soil is entirely different from 

 that of Henderson County, which is very sandy, especially along the 

 Mississippi Idver. Champaign County, for instance, is almost level, 

 and the soil is a rich black loam ; Lee County, or at least that portion 

 of it in which I investigated last winter, is somewhat similar, only more 

 undulating and better drained ; Stevenson County, in the neigliborhood 

 of Freeport, is still more undulating, and Fulton County is agam some- 

 what similar to Champaign. 



In my former investigations of swine plague, I made it my inincipal 

 object to ascertain the nature and the workings of the morbid process, 

 and the real cause or causes of the disease and its spreading. In resum- 

 ing my investigation this fall — in October last — I thought it would best 

 serve the puri)ose to make it a special object to obtain or to search for 

 such results as are of an immediate and practical value to the farmer, 



