A STEANGE CATTLE DISEASE. 253 



A STRAJfGE CATTLE DISEASE. 



Mr. W. W. Lenok, of Shull'S Mills, Watauga Coimty, North Carolina, 

 gives the follovring account of a strange disease "\A'hich has prevailed 

 among cattle in that State for several years past : 



Sir: Your letter, directed to my former residence in Haywood county, North Caro- 

 lina, reached me after long delay, but ought to have been answered sooner. I retained 

 no copy of the letter -written by me in 1872, to which you refer, in relation to the 

 strange disease among cattle which has been of late years in the Northv.est and North, 

 incori'ectly called the Texas fever, but which was kno-mi throughout a large portion 

 of the South for many years before the independence and annexation of Texas by the 

 Tague name of the distemper, and is still so named. 



It evidently prevailed first near the coast, and a dim outline of its history and prog- 

 ress, and of the imperfect knowledge and erroneous theories which prevailed con- 

 cerning it, can be traced in this State, and probably in other Southern States, in the 

 legislation concerning it. 



In North Carolina we have a broad belt of land adjoining the coast, stretching 

 entirely across the State from Virginia to South Carolina, which is almost a level plain, 

 and which extends far enough inland to include many counties and parts of counties. 

 This belt is composed of large bodies of exceediagly rich alluvial swamp-lands, which 

 are rarely dry enough for cultivation without artilicial di'atuage, and which lie along 

 the streams, and are separated trom each other by bodies of lt»vel, sandy, dry land 

 which form the remainder of this level belt. 



These swamp-lands are covered with dense forests of cypress, juniper, oak, and quite 

 a variety of other kinds of trees, many of them of immense size. The dry sandy lauds 

 between the swamps are covered ahnost exclusively with forests of pine trees. 



Above this level belt lies another broad belt, which also sweeps entirely across the 

 State, and is called the sand hills. The alluvial lands along the streams extend 

 through and above the sand hills, and have a similar forest growth, but are narrowei', 

 and form sometimes swamps and sometimes rich alluvial bottoms dry enough for culti- 

 vation in grain without ditchinfj. The uplands of the sand-hill region are composed of 

 innumerable hillocks, and low liat ridges, and nan-ow plains of very sandy land, the 

 forest growth of Avhich is almost exclusively pine. 



Above the sand-hills and extending from them to the Piedmont region, another 

 broad belt runs across the State, which may be called the midland belt of North Car- 

 olina. This is an undulating region, composed of clay upland, interspersed v.'ith fine 

 alluvial bottoms along the streams. This belt is almost destitute of pine, except in the 

 old fields, of which there are far too many — lands which have been once in cultivation, 

 and have now grown up in thickets of what are called old-field pines. The principal 

 native forest growth of this belt of the State is oak, with an abundant mixture, how- 

 ever, of hickory, poplar, walnut, dogwood, sourwood, gum, and a variety of other 

 trees. 



Above this midland belt of the State comes the Piedmont region, extending to the 

 foet-hills and lower portions of the southeastern slojies of the Blue Kidge, and includ- 

 ing the secondary ranges southeast of the Blue Eidge, called Laiu-atown, Brushy, and 

 South Mountains, &c. ; and the fine Piedmont valleys of the Dan, Yadkin, Catawba, 

 Broad, and other rivers; which lie between the smaller mountain ranges and the Blue 

 Eidge. 



The Piedmont region is marked by a surface becoming by degrees more and more 

 undulatory, broken, and at length mountainous ; by the presence still of alluvial bot- 

 toms along the streams; by a greater variety of soil as well as surface of the tiplands, 

 portions of which are here found to bo somewhat sandy ; by a greater variety of forest 

 trees, and by the ]>artial reappearance of pines, which are now found scattered over 

 the uphinds among the other trees, not in excess, but in ample abiuulanco. 



Finally, we have the mountain region, including the summit of the Blue Eidge, 

 •which in North Carolina fonns the water-shed between the Atlantic and Mississippi 

 waters, and extending from it to the AHeghany range, which forms the State lino be- 

 tween North Carolina and Tennessee. This highly elevated moimtain belt has a cool, 

 moist, temj)erate, healthful climate, and a delightfully varied surfac^e of lovely val- 

 leys and rich mountain sides. Its agricultural resources are wonderfully varied and 

 extensive. It is a land eminently suitable for permanent pastures and meadows; and 

 Avhen its immense forests arc subdued and its lines of transportation opened uj), it wiU 

 soon become the finest grazing, stock-raising, and dairying land in the United States. 



Please excuse this slight outline of the State, which is interesting in itself and has 

 some bearing on the sul)ject. 



An early statute on the subject of the "distemper," enacted in North Carolina many 

 years ago, iirohibited the driving of cattle from the pine lands in the eastern portion 



