1860. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



323 



infected districts, with peremptory instructions 

 to prevent all ingress of cattle upon any pretext 

 ■whatever, 



A similar course is being taken by the farmers 

 of New Hampshire. The last number of the 

 Concord Patriot gives an account of meetings 

 held in Weare, Deering, Hopkinton and Hills- 

 borough. The people are determined to stop the 

 passage through their towns of all cattle, from 

 whatever direction. New cases have been found 

 in Hillsborough and Antrim. The disease has 

 not made its appearance in Weare, as yet, and 

 the authorities hope, by prompt action, to escape 

 a visitation. 



A rumor is published in some of the papers 

 that the disease has made its appearance in York 

 county, Maine, and that several valuable cows 

 have died from its effects. A commission from 

 Maine, consisting of S. L. Goodale, Esq., Secre- 

 tary of the Board of Agriculture, Dr. E. Holmes, 

 editor of the Maine Farmer, and Dr. Amos 

 Nourse, of Bath, arrived in this city to attend the 

 extra session of our Legislature, with regard to 

 the disease. 



New Jersey, also, is threatened by the scourge. 



It has appeared in Newark. The Journal gives 



the following statement : 



In December last, Mr. Johnson, a Newark former, 

 bought six calves in the New York market. In a few 

 weeks two of them died, and he has since lost two 

 others. He has had five cases which he thinks enth'cly 

 recovered, and five are now sick. Last week one of hi§ 

 animals died, and another was killed. These animals 

 were examined l)y competent surgeons and others, and 

 it is said that both cases presented every indication of 

 the disease existing in this State, and were pronounced 

 by Dr. Grycc, V. S., of New York, as well as the medi- 

 cal gentlemen present, unmistakable cases of pleuro- 

 pneumonia. A large portion of Mr. Johnson's herd 

 have been sent to pasture, where there are hundreds 

 of cattle together, and it is feared that disease has thus 

 obtained a sure foothold. 



A commission has been appointed by the Gov- 

 ernor of Ohio, to visit this State, and investigate 

 the origin, causes and nature of the cattle disease. 



The General Assembly of Rhode Island have 

 passed an act to prevent the introduction and dis- 

 semination of infectious or contagious disease 

 among the neat cattle in that State. It makes 

 stringent provisions against the introduction of 

 any cattle into the State in violation of the act ; 

 give town councils full power to take all mea- 

 sures they may deem necessary to prevent the 

 spread of the disease in their several towns ; pro- 

 vides for a board of commissioners, of one mem- 

 ber from each county, to attend to the faithful ex- 

 ecution of the act, and fixes severe penalties upon 

 the sale of any cattle known to be infected, and 

 upon transporting cattle from a town where the 

 disease is known to exist, to other towns in the 

 State. It takes immediate effect, and is to con- 

 tinue in operation until suspended by proclama- 

 tion of the Governor. 



On Friday, June 1, before the special com- 

 mittee of the Legislature, Rev. Daniel Lind- 

 ley, recently from the mission at South Africa, 

 gave some interesting facts concerning the dis- 

 ease in that country. He said : 



The distemper was introduced into South Afi-ica 

 about six years ago, by the importation of a bull from 

 Holland. He was on the voyage aliout two months, and 

 the disease appeared in about'six weeks, but its nature 

 was not known at first. The animal died, but not be- 

 fore the disease had spread. In that country the cat- 

 tle are kept in large herds, and wander over large 

 tracts of land. Oxen are u~^ed there for transportiug- 

 goods all over that c-ountry. When the existence oV 

 disease became known it was too fai^ spread to bo 

 stopped. Nothing was done by the government toi 

 stop it, and the desti-uction was extensive. The de- 

 struction thei-e has been such that many persons have 

 been obliged to give up CiUtle, and have taken to rais- 

 ing sheep instead. 



He was anxious to bring the committee to realize 

 the importance of the subject. It has spread 1200 

 miles from Cape Town across the continent, and was 

 fast spreading along the coast. Animals died in about 

 eleven weeks after exposure. Inoculation was prac- 

 ticed by every man for himself, and was partially suc- 

 cessful. Mr. Lindicy explained the process of inocula- 

 tion, and the symptoms of the disease. He said that 

 some of the cattle died from inoculation whose lungs 

 were not alfected at all. There is no accounting for 

 this ; it is contrary to science and all general rules. 

 He had known animals that had died after inocula- 

 tion, that had taken the disease from an exposure. It 

 was hard to tell whether the animal died from the dis- 

 ease or from inoculation. Inoculation will not cure — 

 it is only a preventive. Some of the oxen get along- 

 very ■well after inuciilatiou,and some of them arc quite 

 sick. Others are worked all the time. In. Europe they 

 think less of inoculation than in South Africa. He did 

 not know how the climate would affect the matter 

 here. Where he lived, the thermometer ranged from 

 93° to 42°. He Avas confident that the disease- could 

 be stopped here Ijy isolation. He was certain that it 

 is a contagious disease. 



A vote was taken allowing' the gentlemen from 

 Maine to ask questions, and the witness ■was exam- 

 ined minutely into the peculiai-ities of the disease iu 

 Africa, and as to his opinion concerning the simi- 

 larity of that disease with the one existing in Massa- 

 chusetts. He was quite confident that it was the same 

 disease. They have in South Africa the genuine pleu- 

 ro-pneumoma, which they know all about. This dis- 

 ease under discussion, came afterwards, and is very 

 different from it, in being contagious. 



Health of Americans. — De Bow's mortality- 

 statistics, compiled from the last census, sho^w 

 that the people of the United States are the heal- 

 thiest on the globe. The deaths are three hun- 

 dred and twenty thousand per year, or one and a 

 half per cent, of the population. In England the 

 ratio is near two per cent., and in France nearly 

 three per cent. Virginia and North Carolina are 

 the healthiest of the States, and have six hundred 

 and thirty- eight inhabitants over one hundred 

 years of age. 



FiBRiLiA, OR Flax Cotton. — Three address- 

 es delivered by Stephen INI. Allen, Esq., be- 

 fore the Legislative Societies of Massachusetts 

 and Rhode Island, and the Class on Agriculture 

 at Yale College. We gave the substance of these 

 lectures last winter in one of our reports of the 

 Legislative Agricultural Society. For sale by A. 

 Williams & Co., Boston. 



