484 DISEASES OF CATTLE. 



The handicap that is placed on the southern cattle raiser as a result 

 of this decrease in value of his stock will average at tliis figure $3 

 per head, allowing an individual weight of 600 pounds for all classes 

 of animals. This decreased value reacts and fixes the valuation of 

 all cattle which remain in the infected territory, thereby reducing 

 the assets of the cattle industry of that section. In addition there 

 is a very great loss from the decrease in flesh and lack of develop- 

 ment of southern cattle occasioned by the parasitic life of the ticks 

 from without and by the blood-destroying and enervating proDerties 

 of the protozoan parasites from within. 



The pi^esence of the tick among the cattle of the South not only 

 lessens the value of the cattle on the hoof but causes the gradings of 

 hides that have been infested with ticks as No. 4 quality. The same 

 hide, if free from tick marks, would gi-ade No. 2. The difference 

 in price between these two grades of hides is 3 cents a pound. As 

 the hide of a southern steer weighs about 42 pounds, the presence of 

 the tick in the hide causes a loss in the hide alone of more than $1.26 

 a hide. It has been shown that the cost of tick eradication is only 

 about 50 cents a head, so that if the counties make a systematic cam- 

 paign to eradicate the tick, the increase in value of the hide alone 

 would pay for the cost of tick eradication and. leave the farmer a 

 net profit of about 76 cents a hide. 



The shrinkage in the milk production of cattle harboring many 

 ticks will average 1 quart a day, which in the aggi-egate is a heavy 

 loss. The damage resulting to the southern purchaser of northern 

 purebred or high-grade cattle is another item of no small moment. 

 About 10 per cent of all such cattle taken into the South die of Texas 

 fever, even after they are immunized by blood inoculations, and 

 about 60 per cent of them succumb to Texas fever when not so 

 treated. As they are usually very expensive animals and of a highly 

 valued strain of blood, the loss in certain cases is excessive and in 

 others almost irreparable, owing to the possible extinction of some 

 particular type especially selected for the improvement of the herd. 



Another instance in which it is difficult to figure the injury done 

 by the ticks is in the case of death of nonimmune cattle in the tick- 

 free pasttires of the South. Such animals are as susceptible to Texas 

 fever as nonimmune northern cattle, and inasmuch as there is in 

 many States only one out of every four farms infested with ticks, the 

 cattle on the remaining farms will in many cases contract Texas 

 fever when exposed to the fever tick. These losses can scarcely be 

 computed, as the death rate depends so much on the season of the 

 year when exposure occurs and on the age of the animal affected. 

 However, the deaths among such cattle are considerable, although 

 this fact is little appreciated or understood by many outside the in- 

 fected area. 



