SECRETARY'S REPORT. 11 



spread of the disease in and from Ashby are so conclusive that 

 it seems proper to put them in tliis Report. 



The pair of oxen kept at the Box Tavern stable over night 

 on the 24th of March, as before stated, were driven to the farm 

 of Levi Smith, in Ashby. Eighty-six days after, one of the herd 

 of Mr. Smith was attacked. A bull belonging to another party 

 was kept at the farm at the time the ox was taken sick. A few 

 days after, the owner sold him, and he was driven to Sharon, 

 N. H., where, after exposing two herds, he died, as did several 

 animals so exposed in these herds. Much has been said about 

 the disease being generated by bad ventilation. Unless the 

 mountain pastures in New Hampshire, the hills of Ashby, the 

 large, clean barns, (the doors of which had not been shut for 

 months before the disease broke out,) and the hills and valleys 

 of Deer Island require better ventilation, the theory that the 

 disease is caused by bad ventilation must be abandoned. 



The Commissioners visited New Hampshire to learn if the 

 reports were true that the disease had broken out in pastures in 

 that State. On arrival at Peterborough, information was 

 received that a board of cattle commissioners had been appoinl^ed 

 by the governor and council, and that Albert G. Scott, Esq., a 

 resident of that town, was a member, who stated that the reports 

 were too true, and much alarm existed among the farmers of 

 that section. On the following day, by invitation of the New 

 Hampshire commissioners, several herds were examined in 

 Hancock and Peterborough. Two animals were selected and 

 slaughtered. The autopsies proved that it was the same disease 

 as in Massachusetts. An arrangement was made with the New 

 Hampshire commissioners, that no cattle affected with pleuro- 

 pneumonia should be allowed to go to Massachusetts, or that 

 cattle which had been exposed in pastures where the disease had 

 existed, or in adjoining pastures, should not be transported 

 otherwise than by railroad, and on arrival in this State to be 

 sold for beef, thereby protecting the farmers on the line of road 

 usually travelled in both States, and preventing the spread of 

 the disease in the localities where the cattle were owned. 



Much credit is due the New Hampshire Commissioners for 

 their energetic and faithful co-operation in the endeavor to 

 prevent the spread of the disease in their own State and in 



