THE LUNG PLAGUE OF CATTLE. 15 



in the inn-run- 1,'Jdii miles, and across the plains to where I live, 1,200 miles more. 

 Well, this country is passed through Tip and down, crosswise, and hack ward and for- 

 ward, by hundreds of wagons and thousands of cattle every day. They have no rail- 

 roads, no rivers, no other way of transport ing goods from one point to another but 

 this ox wagon. Well, they are great sheep raisers in this country having four to ten 

 thousand sheep in a tlock and I have seen as many as fourteen thousand in one flock. 

 Their clips of wool are all sent down in these wagons to the coast. 



Ill a country of this kind, where there are so many cattle, and whore everything is 

 done by means of cattle, and they are traveling night and day, there is no possibility 

 of killing out this disease by extirpation. The seed had been so widely disseminated 

 before the people knew what the matter was that such a system was looked upon as 

 hope-loss, and the government adopted no measure to stay it, and every man was h-fi 

 to look out for his own interests. I will say that after it had got fairly spread abroad 

 to a considerable extent, the inhabitants very generally resorted to inoculation. And 

 I will say in passing that we- are indebted to that for about all the cattle we have left. 

 We should have been flat on the, ground and no man could have got to the coast with 

 his products or returned with his merchandise. Inoculation has saved us what we 

 have after six years. The disease was still at work when I came away, about a year 

 ago, but was much more under subjection. It has killed hundreds and thousands of cattle, 

 dud I can assure you, gentlemen, that where it has come into a flack it has not left more than 

 t'rr nt of a hundred. I was happily surprised when I heard Dr. Loring state that in 

 'the past year, in this State, not more than 20 per cent, had died. 



ll'ith ux, when an animal is known to have the disease, we look upon it as already dead. 

 I can affirm, without hesitation, that where it has got into a herd of cattle not more than five 

 out of a hundred hare been spared. Occasionally one has passed through and has not had the 

 dixcdNC at all : and a fete, on the other hand two or three in a hundred have recovered, and 

 no more. I know of one man trho had fire hundred head oj cattle, and that disease got in and 

 he had not jive left. If I speak with emphasis, it is because I have had sad experience ; and 

 I have been 'afraid that the good citizens of Massachusetts might not be aware of the 

 evil which I most firmly believe threatens their property interest more than anything 



that ever threatened it yet. 



*#* 



I will tell you how the disease came to my particular neighborhood: A native went 

 out as a peddler over the Cathumba Mountains into the interior, nearly 300 miles. 

 Then- he took cattle in payment for goods. He brought down a herd of oxen to the 

 eastern coast; while on the way down some of his oxen became sick and he quietly 

 put them out of the way, for he could travel two or three days perhaps and not see a 

 single person, and the dead cattle were not likely to attract attention. He had that 

 failing which we can pardon in others, as we see it in ourselves, that he cared a 

 little more for himself than he did for his neighbors. He put the sick oxen out of 

 the way, and brought down the rest and sold them. They were bought by a gentle- 

 man who had about 120 oxen. The peddler's cattle, looking apparently well, were 

 put into that herd. Well, presently the disease broke out. It was in that instance 

 that this doctor had the influence to prevent the slaughter of the herd, because he 

 said the disease was not contagious. Well, these cattle were running about in the 

 neighborhood out on the plain, 20 miles square, without fence and without tree, save 

 here and there a bush where were grazing thousands of cattle, and they ran just 

 where they pleased. From this flock the contagion was communicated to all the cat- 

 tle in the region. Oxen were traveling through the country every day, at least a 

 hundred passing a day, and in that way it was carried widely through the country. 

 I 'mi I it was brought from a contaminated region in the interior by these oxen, the 

 disease had never been within 300 miles of us. I might give a thousand facts just 

 equal to this, but I am mentioning what occurred in my neighborhood. 



The disease had not crossed to the northward to the Uugani liiver until this happened. 

 A man wished to convey a boat from Natal to aplace about (50 miles to the northward. 

 Jlc put the boat on a wagon and took his six yoke of oxen to draw it. He traveled 

 one day and camped just outside of a village through which he had passed. In the 

 morning he found one of his oxen sick. He had camped on a piece of ground where 

 oxen grazed every day, and in a place, where people thought themselves safe. Find- 

 ing his ox sick, he quietly took him and his mate out of the wagon, and leaving them 

 there, started on. These oxen remained through the day and mixed with the many 

 cattle owned in that village. The second day after they had been there it was dis- 

 covered that there, was a sick ox iu the field. The inhabitants were all out at once ; 

 they killed the ox, and from the description they saw that he had the disease they had 

 dreaded. They immediately inoculated their cattle and saved a goodly number of 

 them. Now, in regard to that, I wish to make this statement: I made a statement 

 which was honestly reported, I suppose, but mistakenly as a statement, that they had 

 saved 90 per cent. : in some cases not more than 30 per cent. Between this and 90 

 is probably the average per cent, saved. Iu that case I mentioned that there was a 



