SPLENIC OR PERIODIC FEVER OF CATTLE. 129 



law adopting its own expedients. Dealers and farmers wlio owned 

 southern cattle have been threatened, they have been pounced on in the 

 dead of night, that they raight surely be found in their homes; and 

 there and then they have been requested to attend meetings of indig- 

 nant and impoverished neighbors. Lastly the stampeding and sliooting 

 of Texan cattle, whenever and wherever they might be seen, have been 

 the mild alternatives which seem to have satisfied a thirst for revenge ; 

 or in some instances human life would, in all probability, have been sac- 

 rificed. Indeed, threats have been numerous, and lieavy bonds or tlie 

 actual payment of cash for dead, dying, and infected stock, have alone 

 saved tlie persons of traders, commission agents, and farmers, who hap- 

 pened to have any dealings in long-horned beeves. The prevention of 

 splenic fever, therefore, implies in many instances the i)revention of law- 

 lessness, and the preservation of the public peace. 



We have seen that splenic fever is a malady indigenous to Texas. It 

 is there an enzootic, and whatever may be the plant or i)lants inducing 

 the disorder, it is indisputable that the conditions prevail there which 

 are rife in all parts of the world where enzootic blood diseases, fatal 

 parasitic maladies, and periodic outbreaks of mysterious affections, which . 

 annihilate herds and even depopulate districts, occasionally predomi- 

 nate. 



The extirpation of noxious plants, the purification of streams, the 

 equalization of the balance between animal and plant life on a given 

 extent of soil, are agricultural problems which cannot, in Texas, be 

 solved for generations to come. Thorough drainage, breaking up pas- 

 ture lands, fencing off low wood lands which are crammed with a disease- 

 producing vegetation, are measures neglected in Great Britain, which 

 will tax the industry and capital of many of the sons and grandsons of 

 the present race of farmers, north, east, and west, in the United States; 

 and how much longer must not the exuberant soil of Texas wait for the 

 hands and the brains engaged in making two blades of grass grow where 

 there was once but one I Fertile, and reeking with the decay of excess 

 as it is, we cannot anticipate the time when it will be so densely 

 peopled as to secure attention to definite sanitary laws which, if not 

 impracticable under the circumstances, might be applied for the preven- 

 tion of splenic fever in Texas, Florida, or wherever else it may be dis- 

 covered to exist as an enzoiitic. 



The question next presents itself whether the trade in live cattle 

 between the south and the north is to be permitted. Its annihilation 

 would effectually prevent such outbreaks as I have had occasion to study; 

 but such an expedient, thougli it might commend itself to some short- 

 sighted farmers in Illinois and Indiana, would not be tolerated. It is 

 true that, notwithstanding all the dil1li;ulties experienced in the past, 

 wherever attempts have been made in the south to slaughter, and con- 

 sign their animal pro<luce to northern and other markets, the time will 

 arrive, in all probability, for some such outlet to be secured. But, with 

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