90 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



being transported by steamers from tlie Texan coast to New Orleans 

 and thence to eastern or to western cities; and it is, likewise, diflicult to 

 draw too vivid a i)ictnre of the perils and anxieties of a drover's life. 

 Energeti(; frontiersmen in small bands, armed to their teeth, collect a 

 herd of cattle, varying from two to twelve hundred, and then drive at 

 the rate of eight or ten miles a day, through unsettled lands, a distance 

 of from six to nine hundred miles; always watching lest their cattle 

 and horses be stampeded, or their own scalps taken by wild Indians. 

 Storms and herds of buffaloes are minor causes tending to scatter the 

 drover's property; but it is not uncommon for a heavy percentage of 

 amimals to be lost from one or all the foregoing causes combined. 



Notwithstanding the waste in flesh and lives among stock ou the 

 New Orleans route, and the hardships to be endured by drovers in the 

 southwest, the prices realized by Texan steers, when reaching the great 

 markets of America, prove, in many instances, highly remunerative. 



The scarcity of cattle in the west, especially since the war, the tempt- 

 ing prospects of utilizing thousands and tens of thousands of open and 

 unreclaimed prairie lands, the constitutional soundness of Texas cattle, 

 which enables them individually to withstand influences which are 

 destructive to other stock, are all causes which tend to favor the invest- 

 ment of western capital in such stock. 



The current has been too strong for ordinary State legislation ; and 

 early, during the past spring, a strong tide set in, which brought large 

 herds into the west, through New Orleans and Cairo, or via Abilene to 

 St. Louis, Quincy, Chicago, Cincinnati, and many grazing farms between 

 those points. 



The peoi)le of Illinois were warned by Mr. D. C. Emerson, of Vanda- 

 lia, in a letter to the Chicago Tribune, of the 26th of ]May. Circum- 

 stances have tended to give a historical worth to that brief comnuinica- 

 tion. Mr. Emerson said: "Having been a constant reader of your val- 

 uable paper for many years, and wishing to promote the general good 

 and prosperity of our great and growing State, I would call the atten- 

 tion of farmers and cattle- growers to the following facts : 



"While at Centralia, yesterday, I saw a very long train of stock cars 

 filled with Texan and with Indiana oxen on their way to Iroquois County^ 

 there to be ftittened on the ricli prairies ; and I learned that there were 

 in the lot fourteen hundred head of old, worn-out oxen, bringing the 

 'Spanish fever with them. A writer in the Missouri Democrat has de 

 scribed this disease as contagious, and says that it causes the destruction 

 of our home cattle, wherever these Texas cattle are taken." 



I arrived in Chicago on the 1st of June, the day on which ]\rr. Emer- 

 son's letter was ]nibHshed, and wi'ote to tlu' (Miicago Tribune, communi- 

 cating information whicli had been furnished me by General Horace 

 Capron, and wliich indi(nited that, while trustworthy and ai)palling 

 reports of the Spanish fever had been furnished by the people of Kan- 

 sas, Missouri, Kentucky, and even Illinois, the Texas people were indig- 



