370 AGRICULTURE 



of all the animals of a herd which is being tested. It will 

 not injure well animals nor give them the disease. Animals 

 that have tuberculosis reveal this fact by a feverish 

 condition which arises from eight to twelve hours after the 

 tuberculin is administered. Well animals show no such 

 reaction. 



Suppressing tuberculosis in cattle. Little can be 

 done in the way of treatment to cure tuberculosis in cattle. 

 Those that have contracted it in a mild form often recover. 

 Animals found to be well advanced with the disease should 

 at once be slaughtered. All diseased stock should be sep- 

 arated from well animals, and kept in different barns and 

 pastures. 



The milk from mildly diseased cows may be used, pro- 

 viding it is first carefully pasteurised. To pasteurize milk, 

 it is kept at a temperature of one hundred and forty-nine 

 degrees for twenty minutes, or one hundred and seventy- 

 six degrees for five minutes. This heating is sufficient to 

 kill the germs of the tuberculosis. 



10. Texas, or Tick, Fever 



A troublesome cattle disease common throughout the 

 southern states is tick -fever, sometimes called Texas fever. 

 The disease is caused by a small animal parasite carried to 

 the affected animals by a small tick. The parasite works in 

 the blood of the animal, causing a high fever. 



Loss from the Texas fever ticks. Not only does the 

 tick carry to the animal on which it lives the parasite that 

 causes serious disease, but it lives off the blood of its host, 

 decreases its vitality, and reduces the amount of milk or 

 beef produced. It is estimated that the annual loss to the 

 South from this one species alone has amounted to more 

 than forty million dollars. 



