36 THE LUNG PLAGUE OF CATTLE. 



transport and tlie consequent improvement of the western herds are, in 

 a great measure, revolutionizing 1 the cattle traffic. A dozen years ago 

 the cattle of the southern and western grazing grounds were poor and 

 backward, and were sent to the rich prairies of Illinois and adjacent 

 States for fatting. At the convention on Texas fever, at Springfield, 111., 

 in 1868, it was alleged that it would not be profitable for the Illinois or 

 Ohio farmer to introduce eastern calves for fattening. They could do 

 much better with the two or three year olds from Texas and Colorado. 

 But to-day the Texas and Colorado cattle begin to tread on the heels of 

 those of Illinois. Many of them come into the market in fair condition 

 for beef, and as the lean produce of these States decreases, the demand of 

 Mississippi Valley States for eastern calves must increase. Thus the 

 railroad facilities, the improvement of the western and southern herds, 

 and the increased demand for eastern calves must advance together as 

 they have in the past; and with the steady extension of the first two, 

 there must be a corresponding increase in the last. It is not to be sup- 

 posed that we have as yet seen anything like the full development of 

 this trade in eastern calves. The increasing demand and the rising- 

 prices must secure a fuller supply, as the dairymen and farmers of the 

 East find in this a new and certain source of income; and under such a 

 stimulus the deterrent conditions which we have enumerated above will 

 gradually diminish and disappear, and our long boasted barrier of the 

 Alleghanies cannot long remain an effective one. 



We are not wrong, therefore, in the assertion that the future is far 

 more pregnant of danger in respect to the propagation of lung plague 

 than has been any period in the past. We have, as it were, reached a 

 crisis in regard to this plague, and unless we sternly and judiciously 

 face the emergency, we may expect an extensive invasion of the West. 



VITALITY OF LUNG-PLAGUE VIRUS. 



There can be little doubt that this contagium, like most others, is 

 robbed of its virulence by free exposure to air. Even infectejl build- 

 ings will usually be purified by being left with open doors and windows 

 for three or four months. In a case at Eidgewood, Queens County, New 

 York, in 1879, the stable of T. Eyan was badly infected throughout 

 spring and summer, as many as 20 cattle having died, while over the 

 fence in a stable, not 40 feet distant, the herd of George Van Size kept 

 healthy throughout. In another instance, on Seventieth street, New 

 York, in the same summer, Joseph Hyde lost 20 cows in four months 

 from tw r o stables, situated onebuildinglot apart from each other, while a 

 German, who kept COW T S in a building on an intervening lot, kept free from 

 the affection. On the contrary, instances of close stables remaining in- 

 fected, though empty, for three or four months are not uncommon. 



In September, 1879, John C. Cheever placed five Jersey cattle in a 

 barn near Yonkers, N. Y., which had been vacated five weeks before by 

 the infected herd of the previous owner, Odell. Before the end of the 

 year the whole herd was infected, and the last of them were slaughtered 

 March, 1880. 



Patrick Green, in April, 1879, took a farm at West Farms, West- 

 chester County,. New York, ignorant of lung plague having been upon 

 the place, under the previous tenant, some months before. The plague 

 broke out in May among his cattle, selected from healthy western dis- 

 tricts, and 14 perished before its progress could be arrested. 



Messrs. Niedlinger, Schmidt & Co., brewers, East Twenty-seventh 



