118 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Oil l;ui(ls wliic'li broufjlit tlicm iu contact with Illinois cattle, and no bad 

 results ensued. Mr. liobert Clark, of Indianola, who has had great ex- 

 perience in driving cattle through Missouri into Illinois, states it as his 

 decided opinion, from rejieated observation and inquiries among drovers, 

 that the Texan steers are most dangerous immediately ai'ter leaving 

 Texas, and hence the great opposition to their importation into Missouri; 

 but that, after they have traveled a long distance, they were far less 

 liable to do any mischief. This point is of great importance in relation 

 to means which might be suggested for the prevention of the disease, 

 and it is worthy of note that, without doubt, cattle driven into Kansas, 

 Missouri, or other States, iu the summer or autumn of one year, grazed 

 in such State during the winter, fail to retain any deleterious principle, 

 and can readily be intermixed with any stock during the winter and 

 spring. Texan herds, therefore, do purify themselves; and the jioint of 

 greatest importance in relation to the traflic in such stock is to establish, 

 without doubt, what length of time is required for such jniriti cation, and 

 if means can be adopted to accelerate so desirable a resnlt. 



NON-TRANSMISSION OF THE DISEASE BY NORTHERN OR BY WESTERN 



STOCK. 



During the three months last summer, too many well-marked cases 

 have been seen of communications of splenic fever to Illinois and to Indi- 

 ana cattle. At first these animals were allowed to die; but, as soon as 

 large herds of grazing stock Avere attacked, an effort was made to save 

 what could be saved, by shipping and sending to eastern markets. Cat- 

 tle trucks have thus been filled in large numbers with infected steers, 

 and they have died or been slaughtered and committed to the rendering 

 tanks. But not a single case has transpired to show that these animals 

 have induced, directly or indirectly, any disease in the stock of Eastern 

 States. How different from this is the working of a contagions disease ! 

 Had any malady of the nature of rinderpest or lung plague been favored 

 in its transmission, as this one has been, the farmers of Ohio, Pennsyl- 

 vania, and New York w^ould have similar bitter experiences to record, 

 to those of the much-injured Illinois farmers. That which is obvious, 

 in relation to the progress of the disease through the country, is also 

 apparent in any district invaded by the disease. None but southern cat- 

 tle cominnnicate disease, and they rarely if ever do any mischief through 

 stockyards and cattle cars, and only by feeding on pastures over which 

 other stock is apt to roam and feed. No case has been brought forward 

 to show that a railway car, loaded with Texans, will communicate dis- 

 ease to other stock afterward placed in such car. Numerous instances 

 of this description would have come to light, had we been dealing with 

 what is commonly understood as a contagious plague. 



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