9 



disease, and especially as to wliether or not inoculation is a preventive against 

 it. I consequently forward tliis communication for insertion in your journal. 

 To show tlie iuiport'inee of this question to the Australian Colonies, and 

 how the matter stands there at present, I will, with your permission, state 

 here, as concisely as I can, the number and value of the cattle stock in the four 

 principal Colonies ; how pleui-o-pneumonia was introduced there ; how it 

 spread ; the losses it has occasioned ; the steps taken to stay its spread ; and 

 the result of inoculation as practised in the Colonies. 



The number of Cattle, and annual return froia them. 



The cattle in the four principal Colonies stood, in 1871, as follows : — 



South Australia 143,463 



Victoria ... ... ... ... ... 776,737 



New South Wales 2,01-1.,888 



Queensland 1,076,630 



4,011,718 



Taking the 'cast' of fat cattle annually sent to the market in these Colo- 

 nies at one-eighth of the total number — a fair average return from breeding 

 and fattening runs in Australia — this would give 501,463 head as the annual 

 'cast'; and these at (say) £7 each, wouhl make £3,510,251 as the value of the 

 annual return from the cattle stock of the four principal Colonies. 



The cattle of the four Colonies are included in the above estimate, as 

 they are all equally interested, it being quite impossible to prevent the 

 cattle of one Colony from mixing or coming in contact with those of the 

 adjoining Colonies. This arises both from the way in which the cattle ai-e 

 kept and moved about, and from the circumstance that a great deal of the 

 inland carriage is still done by bullock teams. Thus the cattle in the Colonies 

 are still in many cases depastured on open runs, and are kept from straying 

 principally through their attachment to the run on which they have been 

 bred. Though this attachment is generally strong enough to keep cattle 

 from leaving the runs, and even portions of the runs, on which they were 

 bred, still, they sometimes do stray, and, if infected, would spread the 

 disease. With store cattle (cattle which have been purchased and put on a 

 new run) the case is very much worse. Their attachment to the run on which 

 they were bred induces them for months, perhaps for years, after they are 

 placed on the new run, to return to their old one, although the two runs 

 may be hundreds of miles apart, and, perhaps, in different Colonies. If 

 they are infected when they leave, they of course spread the infection as they 

 go. Even when the runs are enclosed, infectious and contagious diseases 

 are certain to spread through the mobs of infected cattle and infected 

 bullock teams passing through them. All bond fide travelling cattle, whether 

 as mobs of store cattle or teams of working bullocks, can be depastured on 

 any Crown Lands within half a mile in New South Wales, or a quarter of a 

 mile in Victoria, of the road by which they are travelling ; and as the land 

 on which they have this right of depasturing is seldom or never fenced off 

 from the rest of the run, the travelling cattle not only go on the same ground 

 as those belonging to the run, but frequently mix with them. If, thei-efore, 

 the travelling slock are infected (and they are very apt to become so, even if 

 they were sound when they started, passing, as they often do, through 200 

 or 300 miles of country), they are certain to infect the cattle on the run 

 through which they travel. 



Froni what has been said, it will be gathered that it is quite impossible to 

 maintain a perfect quarantine of the cattle stock in any of the Australian 

 Colonies, or between one Colony and another. This is the great difficulty 



