X BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



but the commissioners were then hopeful that there would be 

 no considerable spread of the trouble. Since the publication 

 of their report there has been an alarming increase of the 

 disease, and the old Massachusetts Society for the Promotion 

 of Agriculture, with characteristic liberality, proceeded to 

 investigate the matter. Competent men were employed in 

 all the counties to report to the society, and it was soon made 

 clear that we had in several districts an acute, contagious 

 fever, similar to the disease existing in Missouri, Illinois and 

 Indiana. This disease of " cholera," or " swine plague," has 

 been prevalent at the West for several years. Dr. Salmon, 

 chief of the United States Bureau of Animal Industry, 

 estimates the loss from its ravages in 1884 at over fifty mil- 

 lions of dollars. It has been brought into this Common- 

 wealth by the importation of hogs from the West, and it is 

 liable to occur wherever hogs are fed upon swill into which 

 infected particles from diseased swine have been cast, or 

 wherever imported hogs are brought. The germ must be 

 present to cause the sickness, and hogs isolated and carefully 

 fed will not have it. The symptoms, as described by Dr. 

 Salmon, are increased temperature, loss of appetite, redness 

 of the skin, sometimes accompanied by cough and diarrhoea. 

 Post-mortem examination reveals the luns-s cono;ested and 

 inflamed, the large bowels ulcerated, and the abdominal 

 cavity and pericardium partly filled with a clear or slightly 

 yellow liquid. Medical treatment to the present time has 

 not been effectual in curing: the sick animals. A wide ranije 

 of remedies, vegetable and mineral, have been tried, and 

 intelligent men, stimulated by the importance of the matter, 

 are daily at work upon the problem. Advertised specifics 

 are not wanting, but on examination or trial they prove to 

 be worthless. 



The annual fairs of the societies connected with the Board 

 of Agriculture were unusually successful ; the attendance at 

 several of them surpassed all previous record, and the exhi- 

 bitions of fruit, flowers and vegetables were remarkable. 



The financial statements of the societies will be found in 

 the usual place, and show improvement over previous years. 



The institutes ordered by the Board have been duly held, 



