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his ranch, and the nature of which leaves no doubt as to its being the 

 true splenic fever. No strange cattle had ever been taken into, or out 

 of, this community, and the germs must have developed there. In 1878 

 it developed forty miles south, on the head of Orestimba Creek, in 

 Stanislaus County, and killed six hundred cattle out of a herd of nine 

 hundred, in a few months. The spleen is always affected, very large, 

 discolored, and soft. The other organs are affected differently in differ- 

 ent cases. Generally the animal droops for a few days, eyes run, and 

 hair rough, fever high, and death follows in a few hours after the animal 

 lies down. Mr. Miller says he has tried the doctors and all kinds of 

 medicines, but the only relief that has been obtained is by corraling the 

 cattle and starving them until they will eat a little bran mush. At the 

 same time he mixes copperas with the water in the trough, making it 

 very strong. They will drink a little, and in this way he has saved a 

 few. Mr. Miller is satisfied that cattle grazing near the carcasses of 

 cattle that have died with the fever will take the disease, and accord- 

 ingly he has issued peremptory orders for the burning of all dead cattle, 

 and the grass in the vicinity of each one. The disease rarely, if ever, 

 shows itself until the hot weather begins, and on the approach of winter 

 subsides. Another feature is that the disease is not apt to develop on 

 ranches where there has been no movement of cattle, save where it has 

 been given off by eating grass around the carcasses of dead animals. 

 This rule is not universal, as is instanced by the cases a'bove cited in 

 Alameda and Stanislaus Counties, but it is the general rule. Hence, it 

 is suggested, that the cattle should not be moved either north or south in 

 the heat of the season, and that shipments should be made in the early 

 spring or in the late autumn. 



"The area of 'big melt' seems to be pretty clearly defined as extend- 

 ing from San Bruno, ten miles south of San Francisco, on down the 

 coast to the State line; but the infected area is not continuous. One 

 ranch, extending a few miles, will give off the disease, while the next 

 one is free from infection. So clearly is the area defined that one farm 

 will be rented for the aftermath from year to year, while the adjoining 

 one can not be rented at all. Experience has proved that from ten to 

 twenty per cent of the cattle will die on the range of one field, while 

 none will even sicken in the other. 



" The Hon. William Dunphy has a ten thousand acre ranch on the 

 Salinas River, fifteen miles south of Soledad. He "also owns a large 

 ranch in Nevada. It has been his practice for years to ship over several 

 hundred head of cattle from the Nevada range to the Salinas ranch in 

 the fall, to ripen for the early spring market. These cattle generally 

 arrive about October 1st, and are turned on the stubble-fields adjoining 

 the. ranch until the winter rains permit plowing to begin. Then they 

 are turned on the bunch-grass and alfalfa pastures of his own ranch, 

 and are thus in condition to fatten quickly, after the rainy season has 

 passed. Mr. Dunphy informs me that he loses from thirty to sixty head 

 of these cattle every year during the first forty days after their 

 arrival, but none of the native or held-over cattle die. His experience 

 is different from that of Mr. Miller and all the ranch men on the San Joa- 

 quin. Mr. Dunphy never burns nor buries the carcasses of dead cattle, and 

 never has experienced any losses from such neglect. Neither was there 

 any trouble from the dead cattle in the two herds abnve named near Stock- 

 ton. This raises an important question in my mind: Are the diseases 



