HO DKL AimiKNT OF AGKICULTUKE. 



Up to the 12th of September, the date of a letter from Broadlands, thirty-one of the 

 animals had died, &quot;most if not all of them from injuries received in transit.&quot; Of four 

 thousand five hundred and twenty-seven animals driven or transported in steamers and 

 on railroads, it is not surprising that some should die, considering the great distances they 

 had to travel; but all which we examined alive appeared healthy and thriving. That 

 they communicated disease to a very serious extent is proved beyond doubt; and it would 

 have been important to determine, by the slaughter of many, their real condition. 



On the 6th of August I visited Broadlands a second time, for the purpose of dissect- 

 infr a Texan steer which the people of the neighborhood believed would show signs of the 

 disease. We inspected the herds generally, which still looked in perfect health, but one 

 of the imported cattle was reported ill and dying. He had reached the farm about the 

 middle of July, and had not thriven well. It was, as usual, supposed that he had sus 

 tained injuries on the journey. When I saw this animal alive, he was lying down, with 

 his head stretched on the ground; imperceptible pulse at the jaw, great listlessness and 

 prostration, but presenting no distinctive symptoms of splenic fever. After death I found 

 that there was an effusion of bloody serum under the jaw. The organs of respiration 

 were healthy, and (lie heart sound. The whole of the stomach and the intestines were 

 normal, as also the liver, gall bladder, and spleen. The kidneys and bladder exhibited no 

 sicms of blood extravasations, or alteration in the urine, such as. is seen in splenic fever. 



O * 



From the general emaciation of the body, and the absence of any lesion of disease, it was 

 evident to me that this animal had died of hectic; or, in other words, of the ill effects of 

 prolonged starvation and ill usage, which had permanently arrested the functions of assim 

 ilation. The Texan cattle were intermixed in the pastures of Broadlands with about six 

 hundred native animals. All but two hundred and eighty of these were soon sent to eastern 

 markets, and those which remained with them began to die on the 26th of July. They 

 were then placed on green corn ; but they continued to sicken and succumb to the disease 

 until one hundred and ninety-eight of all kinds, including a yoke of old Texan steers, 

 which had been some time on the farm, had been buried. At the time of my visit the 

 mortality was raging at its highest point, and men were busy, from sunrise to sunset, skin 

 ning digging graves, and burying. Information afterward received was that one hundred 

 and fifty of the, cattle sent to New York died before they arrived there, and the rest were 

 sent to the rendering tanks. 



Colonel Sullivan, of Twin drove, Vermillion County, Illinois, purchased five hun 

 dred Texan steers at Cairo, on the 24th of May. They remained healthy, b ut communi 

 cated -the disease to forty Illinois steers and twenty heifers and cows. The disease ap 

 peared at Twin Grove on Tuesday, the 28th of July. Of the Texan steers three have 

 died as the result of accident. The next group of southern cattle which come under spe 

 cial observation was that of J. A. Harris, near Champaign. He had eighty-five head of 

 southern cattle, purchased last fall. There were with them thirty-eight Illinois steers, 

 and this herd of one hundred and twenty-three had grazed together the entire season. On 

 the 15th of July they were placed on pasture over which a herd of Texans had been 

 driven on the 15th of June. On the 3d of August the Illinois cattle began to die ; and, 

 in four days, twenty out of the thirty-eight were buried. The eighty-five southern cattle 

 remained in perfect health. 



