286 REPORT OF THE BUREAU OP ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



rest on the ground, and in a few hours they would lie down and die. None got well 

 hat were attacked; but about half would escape. None of the fattening hogs died, 



SULLIVAN. Hog cholera made its iirst appearance in this county in the year of 

 1862. It was very fatal that year. That year the writer had 42 head and lost all 

 but 6. They were very fine, the largest weighing 300 or 400 pounds. I don't know 

 how it was introduced. From that time down to the present it has kept the number 

 of hogs limited. Sometimes there would be a period of from one to three years that 

 hogs would be healthy and do well, but then "would come a fresh outbreak and 

 nearly exterminate the crop in the county. No specific as yet found. All are at- 

 tacked, those in pens and those isolated as well as those running at large. Some 

 farmer every now and then will proclaim that he has found a cure, but upon trial 

 is doomed to disappointment. 



SUMNER. Hog cholera made its appearance here about thirty years ago, but as to 

 the mode of its introduction I can not now state. Previous to the introduction of 

 the disease farmers very seldom lost hogs to amount to anything. It seems there is 

 no cure for the disease; after taking it only those that would naturally get well re- 

 cover. I lost a great many hogs from the disease previous to 1866, but since that 

 time I have lost but very few. I buy the crude petroleum by the barrel and use it 

 once or twice a week on the hogs, and give it to them on corn occasionally, and since 

 doing so have not lost a hog from the cholera. I am thoroughly satisfied it is a pre- 

 ventive, but not a cure. Of course it is necessary not to let hogs use the same bed- 

 ding for months at a time, without a cleaning up. 



TIPTON. Previous to the close of the war we heard of no epidemic or wide-spread 

 fatality among hogs. They were healthy, thrifty, and on many small farms in- 

 creased so rapidly that pigs and shoats were offered for sale in the spring and sum- 

 mer at very low rates. No clover was then raised and the summer keep of hogs 

 was the most troublesome period in their culture. The mast was our unfailing de- 

 pendence to make our meat, allowing from three to five weeks of corn feeding before 

 killing. Every small and moderate farmer made his own meat and lard in abun- 

 dance, and often to spare, which was taken by the large negro plantations or quar- 

 ters. In 1865 there was a visitation of fatal disease among the fed swine, which 

 was called cholera, a name derived from our northwestern friends in Ohio, Illinois, 

 Indiana, and Kentucky. Owing to the ravages of war and the loss of all farm ani- 

 mals there was a great scarcity of hogs, and generally what few were left to the 

 family were penned near the house both for protection and for slopping and kitchen 

 feeding, as there was scarcity of corn everywhere. There was a fearful visitation 

 of the Buffalo gnats that spring, in April. In the early summer of 1875 there was 

 a mild visitation of cholera and also preceding this the buffalo gnat, which drove 

 our teams from the fields. In 1884 the most fatal and universal epidemic of hog 

 cholera occurred, which almost destroyed the stock of hogs with us. This followed 

 quickly a severe and prolonged visitation of the gnats. Before our stock had been 

 restored and built up from this, again the cholera (very fatal) visited us and reduced 

 our stock to a minimum, so that no farmer made his own meat last fall (1886). The 

 inevitable gnat came on us in March, 1886, in dense swarms, lasting for four weeks. 

 Three days after I noticed the gnats my hogs began dying. These may be coinci- 

 dences, but I am firmly persuaded that cholera depends on the poison infused into 

 the system by the bite of the buffalo gnat I mean the fatal epidemic disease that 

 has carried off our hogs for the past twelve or fifteen years. Of course I am aware 

 that hogs have died in enormous quantities when the gnat never appeared. I con- 

 fine my remarks to what has occurred under my own observation. During the past 

 year the health of all farm animals has been unusually good, t?o that the losses from 

 ordinary causes have been less perhaps than an average. All farm stock has in- 

 creased notably in the past six or eight years. A majority of farmers are breeding 

 good mares to jacks, and are all raising mules for their own needs and often to sell. 

 So of horses. Cattle command a good price and much more care is bestowed on 

 their culture. The poor white and negro tenant can hardly be persuaded to try to 

 raise then* own plow mule and milk cow, and to this exten,t are a drawback on 

 stock increase in our county. 



WARREN. Hog cholera manifested itself in this county between 1850 and 1855. 

 Up to that time hogs were very healthy. In 1841 I fed 300 head in one lot, with the 

 loss of one single hog. Since then I have lost 40 to 50 out of a herd of 100 head. 

 In 1885 we lost all but 15 head. No remedies seemed to do any good. It has visited 

 my farm at periods of from seven to fourteen years. Our hogs are very healthy and 

 prolific when free from this disease. The hog is the most profitable animal we can 

 raise when unaffected by disease* 



UNION. Hog cholera made its appearance in this county about the year 1856. No 

 remedy for the disease has ever been discovered. Its visits are penodical usually 

 from two to three years and it is very destructive. 



