18 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Royal Afrricultuiiil College at Aas, jind in the comniencement of Novem- 

 ber pleuro-piieuinouia broke out amonji- them. Dr. Ohif Tliesen has 

 intormed me that he limited the disease to the college, by destroying the 

 native cattle with which the Ayrshire stock had come in contact, and 

 keeping the Ayrshire animals to themselves. Is^orway had been exempt 

 from this cattle plague, and owing to Professor Thesen's activity it now 

 enjoys the same immunity. 



In the month of Sei)tember, 1858, Mr. Boodle, farmer, near Melbourne, 

 imported a cow from England; she landed in good condition and gave 

 milk. She died of pleuropneumonia six weeks after her arrival. Two 

 other head of cattle belonging to Mr. Boodle died in December and 

 another in January. The disease continued to s])read, and the losses 

 have been enormous and almost incessant in Victoria and even in New 

 South AVales. 



HISTORY OF THE LUNG PLAGUE IN A:MERICA. 



The first notice of the lung plague in the United States dates back to 

 1843, when a German cow, imported direct from Europe, and taken from 

 shipboard into a Brooklyn cattle shed, communicated the disease, which, 

 it is said and believed, has prevailed more or less in Kings county. Long 

 Island, ever since. 



In 1847 Mr. Thomas Richardson, of New Jersey, imported some Eng- 

 lish stock. Signs of disease were noticed soon, and the wliole of Mr. 

 Richardson's stock, valued at $10,000, were slaughtered by him to pre- 

 vent an extension of the i)lague. 



In 1850 a fresh supply of the lung-plague poison reached Brooklyn 

 from England in the system of an imported cow. 



Mr. W. W. Chenery, of Belmont, Massachusetts, has related the his- 

 tory of the introduction of lung plague from Holland into Massachu- 

 setts in 1850. Four cows were purchased for him at Purmerend and 

 Beemster, shipped at Rotterdam early in April on board the bark J. C. 

 numi)hreys, which ariived in America on the L'.Ul of May, 1850. Two 

 of the cows were driven to Belmont; the ctther two had to be trans- 

 ported on wagons, owingtotheir "extremely bad condition," one of them 

 *' not having been on her feet during the twenty days preceding her arri- 

 val." On the .'ilst of May, it being deemed impossible that this cow 

 could recover, she was slaughtered, and on the iM of .June following the 

 second cow died. Tlie third cow sickened on the iMHli of June, and died 

 in ten days. The fourth continued in a thriving condition. A Dutch 

 cow, imi)()rted in 1852, was the next one observed ill, early in the month 

 of August following, and she succumbed on the 20th. " Several other 

 aninnds were taken sick in rapid succession, ami then it was that the 

 idea w^as first advanced that the disease was identical with that known 

 in Europe as epizoiitic pleuropneumonia." Mr. Chenery then <lid all in 

 his power to ])revent the spread of disease from his farm. Tiie last 



