THE SPLENIC FEVER. HI 



This special immunity of the cattle imported from the South indicated that they had 

 overcome the influences which operate, however mildly, to the prejudice of their health 

 in the South. 



On the 13th of August we visited Hickory Grove, near Oxford, Indiana. There 

 were at that place one thousand animals, which had been imported in the fall of 1867, 

 and had caused no disease either in transit or on the farm. On the 1st of June, 1868, 

 two hundred and sixteen head were purchased, which came from New Orleans and Mem 

 phis ; and, on the 12th of July and the 8th of August, two separate droves of one thou 

 sand head were taken on the farm from Tolono. The condition of the whole of this stock 

 was as perfect as any grazier could desire. Many of them were quite fit for the butcher; 

 and those purchased last were in a thriving condition. The last two droves communicated 

 disease on their trail ; but, being by themselves at Hickory Grove, had no opportunity of 

 inflicting any damage. 



At Parish Grove, adjoining the last-named farm, a herd of about five hundred Texan 

 cattle had just been imported from Tolono. It was- said that the cattle, on their way 

 from Paxton to Hickory Grove, in July, referred to above, had crossed the prairie in 

 which the Parish Grove, Illinois, cattle, numbering five hundred, had grazed. Within 

 seven or eight dayls after the last herd of five hundred cattle had reached Parish Grove 

 from Tolono, the Illinois cattle began to die. Fifteen car loads of these had just been 

 sent by rail to Chicago ; and, of the remaining number, few survived. I inspected four 

 sick steers, and it was evident that the malady would destroy nearly all the Illinois stock. 

 On an adjoining farm Mr. Edward Sumner had nearly one thousand head of northern cat 

 tle, among which the disease had appeared. 



On the 14th of August we visited Mr. Joseph Heath s farm, near Oxford, Indiana, 

 and found there one thousand one hundred Texan cattle which had been purchased at 

 New Orleans and Tolono. These had communicated disease over the road they had 

 passed, and Mr. Heath s native stock, numbering seventy or eighty, were dying fast. We 

 examined three alive, and dissected two, showing all the indications of splenic fever. 



On the next day, at Reynolds, we visited a herd of over two hundred Texan steers, 

 which had arrived on the 27th of May ; and disease appeared at Reynolds the beginning 

 of June. One car load of the animals was unloaded at Chalmers, and driven upon J. M. 

 Bunnell s pasture, at Reynolds. They remained there only two days ; but, five weeks 

 afterward, the disease appeared, and killed the whole of Mr. Bunnell s stock, amounting 

 to about eighteen hundred head. The bulk of the Texan cattle were sent to Kenton s 

 pasture, three miles from Reynolds, where they were mixed with seventy-three head ot 

 native cattle. Of these, at the time of our visit, from fifty-five to sixty had already died, 

 and others were sick. Cattle on the west side of the track at Reynolds were safe ; but 

 cattle east, between the station and Kenton s pasture, had died. 



It is worthy of special mention here that, for the first time, the transportation of 

 Texan cattle was established in 1868 from New Orleans, by steamboats up the Missis 

 sippi to Cairo ; and thence, via the Illinois Central road, to the pastures of Illinois and 

 Indiana, having heretofore been sent, since the war, from New Orleans up the Mississippi 

 to Louisville, Kentucky, with the same results as at Cairo. The first lot of Texan cattle 

 was landed at Cairo on the 23d day of April ; and between that time and the 1st of Au 

 gust, when the railway peremptorily refused to transport any more stock, about sixteen 



