200 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



CONVENTION OP CATTLE COMMISSIONERS. 



Accepting the invitation of Governor Oglesby, of Illinois, the cattle commissioners 

 of the several States met in convention at Springfield, December 1, 1868. There were 

 present, representatives from Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, 

 Missouri, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. 



Various views were presented, and many facts elicited, of a character similar to those 

 recorded in these pages; it was made perfectly conclusive that the infection came from 

 Texas cattle, and that restrictive legislation was necessary, and rigid inspection of 

 suspected cattle, with provisions for greater care in transportation. 



The convention recommended the enactment of stringent laws to prevent the transit 

 of Texas or Cherokee cattle through their respective States between the first of March and 

 the first of November, and to make the owner responsible for damages caused by the 

 introduction of such cattle. 



It recommended the appointment of State boards of commissioners who should have 

 power to appoint assistants, when needed, to take measures to prevent the spread of 

 diseases of domestic animals, to give public notice of the outbreak of any dangerous 

 disease, establish regulations for the transit of cattle, place diseased animals in quarantine, 

 and cause them to be killed if neccessary to the public protection. It proposed the 

 empowering of commissioners to inspect all cattle brought into the State, to exclude any 

 animal deemed capable of diffusing dangerous diseases, and to stop cattle trains in which 

 no opportunity had been afforded during the preceding twenty-four hours for food and 

 water; and recommended penalties for resisting or interfering with such officers in the 

 discharge of their duties, and for the bribery of officers charged with the execution of 

 the law. 



RECAPITULATION. 



In conclusion, the following peculiarities of this singular disease are presented by a 

 systematic sifting of the mass of testimony brought out during the respective investigations 

 so briefly chronicled in the foregoing pages: 



1. The disease is communicated by southern cattle. 



2. The cattle communicating the infection, though showing signs of splenic enlarge 

 ment or evidence of once-existing disease, when slaughtered, are apparently well and 

 actually increasing in weight and vigor. * 



3. Infection is not usually communicated in winter, and fields may be safely depas 

 tured in spring which have been occupied in winter by southern cattle. In a single case 

 reported an apparent exception is presented. 



4. Animals receiving the infection from southern cattle do not communicate it to 

 other natives. This exemption is a rule so undeviating that probably not one farmer 

 in one hundred, whose stock has suffered by this disease, would fear a dollar s loss by 

 communication of their uninfected with sick animals. The authenticated exception is 



&quot; While Houthcrn cattle possess the perm of virulent disease, it is rarely, if ever, developed in themselves, at least with tl e 

 same manifestations and intensity. As prisoners, coining from unventilated jils, have eommunieated typhus to judge and jury, 

 without active manifestations of similar disease in themselves, so Texas cattle, coming from miasmatic pasturage, infect cattle 

 of other climates, and cause a disease, unknown in degree, (or perhaps in kind) among tlie stock in which the infection originates. 



