138 BEEF PRODUCTION 



TEXAS FEVER 1 



It is not the purpose of the author to discuss the 

 question of Texas fever from the standpoint of the 

 Southern cattle raiser, but merely to give some of the 

 precautions necessary to pervent its introduction into 

 our great corn-belt and beef producing region. 



The Texas fever, otherwise known as tick fever, 

 splenic fever, or Southern cattle fever, is caused by a 

 microscopic parasite Piroplasma bigeminum and the 

 intermediate stage of the development of this parasite 

 takes place in the cattle tick Boophilus annulatus, 

 making this tick the indirect but absolutely essential 

 factor in the natural production of the disease. Above 

 the latitude where the cattle tick is destroyed by the 

 cold of winter the disease can be thoroughly controlled 

 by keeping Southern tick-infested cattle from passing 

 through the country during certain seasons. 



The Department of Agriculture has enacted sanitary 

 regulations for the control of cattle shipments from the 

 infected districts. The purpose of these regulations is 

 to prevent the transportation of cattle ticks from in- 

 fested areas to those that are not infested, either upon 

 cattle or in stock cars or other conveyer, during the 

 season of the year when infection is possible. 



The quarantine line (the line south of which the 

 fever exists), as determined in 1905, starts in Virginia, 

 on the Atlantic Coast, and passes in a westerly direction 

 through Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, 

 and a small portion of Kentucky, along the northern 

 border of Arkansas and Indian Territory,' thence 

 through Oklahoma and Texas to the Rio Grande and 

 the Mexican border, whence it passes along the southern 

 boundary of New Mexico and Arizona and across the 

 central portion of California to the Pacific Coast. 

 Each year districts are being freed from the cattle tick 



'The informal ion here presented is taken from Louisiana Bul- 

 letin No. 82; Farmers' Bulletin No. 261; Bulletin No. 78, Bureau 

 of Animal Industry. 



