SWINE FOR THE HOME MARKET. 265 



fed them steps from one pen to the other and carries the 

 genus in his clothes, will not take the disease. 



There is a good deal of hog cholera in New England. I 

 know it, because I watch it very closely on account of my 

 business interests. A good many diseases which used to be 

 called cholera are not really cholera. I do not question Mr. 

 Grinnell's statement, but from Mr. Bill's description, I should 

 say that he had hog cholera in Paxton. If the disease breaks 

 out among your pigs, isolate them and disinfect their pens at 

 the earliest possible moment ; or, better still, leave your sick 

 pigs where they are, keep them clean, do all you can to dis- 

 infect them and prevent the spread of the disease, and 

 remove j^our healthy pigs to another place and have them 

 tended by another man. 



Mr. Bill. Would it not be better to kill them at once? 



INIr. BuENETT. That is something that every man does not 

 like to do. I should say there would be nothing better than 

 extermination. 



Question. Will the meat of diseased hogs fed to healthy 

 hogs spread the disease? 



Mr. Burnett. I should say, most decidedly, yes. These 

 bacteria are described by microscopists as white in color and 

 oblong in shape. I have no doubt that Major Alvord can 

 tell you a great deal more about them than I can. 



Major Alvord. Just a word in reference to the question 

 of the relative value of skim milk and buttermilk as food 

 for pigs. There is a large butter factory in Amherst where 

 they make from 800 to 1,500 pounds of butter a day, and 

 a very large quantity of buttermilk is sold. A series of ex- 

 periments has been conducted at the Experiment Station 

 under the supervision of Dr. Goessmann, in which a very 

 careful comparison was made between the value of butter- 

 milk and skim milk as a food. We have had there the ad- 

 vantasrc of knowing what the buttermilk was. Of course 

 everything connected with the food of the animals was care- 

 fully analyzed right along. You- will find the results of those 

 experiments in the reports of the Massachusetts Agricultural 

 Experiment Station. I think these were the most careful 

 experiments ever made in this country on the comparative 

 value of buttermilk and skim milk. 



