10 



CHAPTER II. 



CATTLE DISEASES. 



Ir was the enormous losses sustained by stockowners 

 through cattle diseases, culminating in the Cattle Plague of 

 1865-6, which led to the formation of the Central Chamber 

 of Agriculture, as is shown by Mr. Clay's letter of December, 

 1865. It was, therefore, only natural that a number of 

 questions relating to this subject should be brought up for 

 discussion at the earliest meetings of the Chamber. On 

 this ground the question of Cattle Diseases is dealt with 

 first in this history. 



In 1912 there were 83 outbreaks of Foot and Mouth Disease, 

 and if we are to judge of the scare which this epidemic caused 

 by the time devoted to it by Parliament and the space given 

 to it in the public Press, it might be classed as one of the 

 greatest calamities that farming has suffered in the whole 

 fifty years under review. If the sensational headlines, and 

 the miles of print dealing with these outbreaks are compared 

 with the matter-of-fact treatment accorded to the subject 

 of Cattle Plague in the 'sixties, we find an unintentional 

 tribute paid to the administration by the Board of Agri- 

 culture of the various Diseases of Animals Acts ; for it is due 

 to that Department that a long period of comparative 

 immunity caused a mere 83 outbreaks to appear to journalists 

 and politicians in 1912 as of far greater importance than did 

 the 27,815 outbreaks of Cattle Plague in 1865-6. Were we 

 now to be liable to such national scourges among our stock 

 *as our farmers suffered from then, it is to be feared that our 

 newspaper people would break down under the strain of 

 finding words to express themselves adequately. In the 

 early 'sixties the country suffered not only from Cattle Plague, 



