516 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



The evidence regarding the infection of the Connecticut cattle 

 has an important bearing. The first cow died on the eleventh day 

 after leaving West Albany. These were standing in a pen adja- 

 cent to the first carload of cattle that went to Massachusetts on 

 the same day. The development of the disease in the Connecticut 

 cattle, which of course never were in the Brighton yards, serves to 

 point to West Albany stock yards as the source of infection. 

 However, as will be seen later, traffic in southern cattle seems to 

 have been so loosely conducted that no yard through which such 

 may have slipped is above suspicion when outbreaks occur in 

 cattle which have passed through it. 



In company with Dr. Kelly, I visited Watertown, Jefferson 

 County, New York, and Little Falls, Herkimer County, whence 

 these cattle were procured. We found at Watertown, that, 

 according to Dr. J. R. Bell, United States government inspector 

 at that port, not only had there been no disease of any description 

 among the county farms, but that no cattle of any kind had been 

 shipped into Watertown for any purpose whatever, or into the 

 county, barring Canadian cows which are shipped via Cape Vincent 

 en route to eastern points. 



On this trip we investigated a rumored case in Oswego County 

 at Vermillion, N. Y., — a case that had been reported to the New 

 York Department of Agriculture. The cow was raised on the 

 place, had never been off from it, nor had other cattle been brought 

 to the place nor into the vicinity. The cow suffered from another 

 disease. 



At Little Falls we called upon Mr. William Cotter, of whom nine 

 head of the first carload had been purchased. There had been no 

 disease on his place or on the farms from which he purchased the 

 cattle, nor had Buffalo or Chicago cattle been introduced. 



Mr. A. L. Eaton, who lives about three miles from Little Falls, 

 had sold six of the first carload ; he is a buyer. He has a large 

 pasture, where cattle from all parts mingle. He has not had, nor 

 heard of, disease in cattle excepting those he sold to Mr. Smith. 

 He had bought Buffalo cattle three months before ; but according 

 to Mr. Smith, at least part of these Buffalo cattle which he (Smith) 

 bought died, showing their susceptibility to the disease. They did 

 not infect the pasture, otherwise there would have been trouble 

 before our visit. There were at the time of our visit sixty head 

 of cattle in the pasture. 



The disease could not have arisen either in Herkimer or Jefferson 

 counties. There remains the possibility of car infection and yard 

 infection at West Albany stock yards. I believe that infection of 

 the Connecticut cattle at the unloading place in New Milford, 



