70 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



had not yet arrived, he would be present at a later stage in the 

 meating. 



This question, Mr. Chairman, is very indefinite, and, as it is 

 worded', embraces the whole subject, and opens it to inquiries 

 or statements on the part of practical farmers. 



I do not profess to know much about it, but for the sake of 

 introducing the subject I will make a few remarks, which may 

 lead to further discussion. 



The most important thing, at the present time, for farmers, 

 all over the country, to consider, is the possible introduction of 

 the cattle plague from Europe. Probably the facts with regard 

 to that disease are pretty well known, particularly to those who 

 read the agricultural papers, and I can offer nothing new that 

 has not appeared in some of those papers. The cattle plague in 

 England is quite different from the pleuro-pneumonia. In the 

 first place, the period of incubation, or the time from the first 

 exposure to the breaking out of the disease, is entirely different. 

 The period with the cattle plague is only from eight to twelve 

 days, while that of the pleuro-pneumonia is irregular, but usually 

 about forty or fifty days. 



Again, the symptoms are very different. The cattle plague is 

 an abdominal disease, while the pleuro-pneumonia is a lung dis- 

 ease. The fatality, also, is very different. Tliat of the cattle 

 plague is eighty or ninety per cent., and often even greater, 

 while that of the pleuro-pneumonia is only twenty-five or thirty 

 per cent. Of course, the plague is more dangerous and more 

 to be apprehended. That both diseases are contagious I think 

 is well settled, both by our experience and that of Western 

 Europe. I think, also, that neither can arise spontaneously or 

 indigenously, either here or thpre. That is well established. 



"When the cattle plague broke out in England, about the last 

 of June or the first of July, the French government sent one of 

 their first veterinary surgeons to England and another to Ger- 

 many, to make investigations in regard to the facts of the 

 introduction of the disease into those countries. After some 

 time, the gentleman who went to England ascertained that that 

 disease had been introduced from the Gulf of Finland, and that 

 they lost some two or three thousand in a week in the month of 

 July, l^lany facts were also obtained in Germany, so that the 

 French government acted with great strictness, and absolutely 



