116 DEPABTMEST OF AGEICULTUKE. 



communicate disease, arid they rarely, if ever, do any mischief through stock yards and 

 cattle cars, and only by feeding on pastures over which other stock afterward roams and 

 feeds. No case has been brought forward to show that a railway car loaded with Texan 

 cattle will communicate disease to other stock afterward placed in such car. Numerous 

 instances of this description would have come to light had we been dealing with what is 

 commonly understood as a contagious plague. 



COMMUNICATION IN STOCK YARDS. 



The earlier reports from Cairo stated that the cows in that city had caught the disease 

 from the Texan cattle in steamboat and railway pens; indeed we were informed that 

 many of the Cairo cows had been in the habit of wandering not only near, but into the cattle 

 pens, and eating the hay the Texan cattle left behind them. This is the only observation 

 that would give color to the view that hay might be a means of propagating the disorder. 

 But we learned at Cairo that Texan cattle had been loose on the common within the 

 levee, and some stray animals had remained for some days on the very prairie which is 

 the only pasture for the cattle of the town. It was impossible to find a single case which 

 afforded reliable grounds for supposing that the only chance for contamination was in the 

 cattle pens of Cairo. 



It may be suggested that eating hay which has been poisoned must be as bad as 

 eating prairie grass over which Texan steers have wandered. But there is this difference, 

 that cattle are not apt to eat hay on which the excretions of other cattle have been 

 deposited, and would attempt to pick up only the clean fodder. On grass lands the 

 growth of grass and the washings of the pasture by rains clear off the filth, though they 

 may often leave adhering deleterious principles, which are swallowed. A good illustration 

 of this is afforded by the dissemination of the tapeworm, the ova of which are distributed 

 with the excrement of dogs and other carnivora; and, while the feces are washed away, 

 the ova adhere to blades of grass, and develop in the systems of cattle and sheep. 



I would not wish it to be understood that I consider it improbable that hay may, under 

 some circumstances, be poisoned by Texan steers, and afterward give disease to other 

 stock; but, as yet, no facts prove that such has been the case. On the contrary, the most 

 reliable, though accidental, experiment is afforded by cattle fed by Mr. Sherman, of the 

 Union stock yards, Chicago. He has thirty-five cows which have grazed all summer close 

 up to the cattle pens where thousands of southern steers have been inclosed, without inter 

 mission. Of these cows the majority have been purchased out of the yards at different 

 times, some last spring, and some have been in the cattle pens with Texan droves. On 

 the occasion of my visit to the yards I have also seen a Texan calf placed with the cows; 

 and yet no animals could be in better health than those in Mr. Sherman s dairy. 



This suggestive case proves, in the most incontrovertible manner, that western cattle 

 can be mingled with Texans in stock yards, can graze side by side with them if separated 

 by a fence, and that cows can suckle the Texan calves, without becoming affected with 

 splenic fever. I am not prepared to say that any of the cows purchased by Mr. Sherman 

 were fed on hay in the yards while they were in the same pen with the Texan cattle, 

 but in all probability they were. 



This point has acquired some importance since the British government prohibited the 

 importation of hay from the United States. Acting on the side of prudence, with the 



