178 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



I have in mind two creameries which were close together; 

 one had twenty-five per cent and the other thirty-one per cent 

 of the animals they received the milk from react to the tuberculin 

 test. Young calves reacted. Ordinarily speaking, the young 

 stock does not have it nearly as much as the older ones ; it is usu- 

 ally those that are fed on the skim milk. I took twelve calves 

 and placed them in a tuberculin barn and in six months time 

 four were condemned and only fit for fertilizer; the disease had 

 progressed in an unusually short time. Generally it takes from 

 three to four years. 



This method of bringing to our farms the diseased cattle 

 is the main way in which the disease is introduced into our herd. 

 When it is once introduced it slowly spreads. 



In the early days the breeders were the ones to blame more 

 than any one else, not because the breeders were more prone to 

 the disease but it gave a better opportunity for its distribu- 

 tion. 



We got this disease from the older countries; in Wisconsin 

 we got it from New York or Pennsylvania. They in turn got 

 it from Holland and the northwestern part of Europe. You 

 can trace this thing back from time to time, due in every in- 

 stance directly or indirectly to a previous case of the disease in 

 the cattle. 



It is by no means confined to cattle. Hogs are more prone 

 than cattle to this disease; one feeding of infected milk is suffi- 

 cient to give them this disease. I have known of a bunch of 

 hogs that received one feeding; those hogs were killed inside 

 of fifteen days and we found visible signs of the disease. Hogs 

 fed on skim milk are prone to acquire this disease. This dis- 

 ease is increasing greater among swine than the dairy cattle. 



One thing, we cannot use this tuberculin test on hogs. We 

 are, therefore, powerless until those hogs are slaughtered. We 

 find this disease increasing among the hogs and it comes to a 

 great degree from associating with tuberculos cattle. Not only 

 may the diseased organism develop within the system of the 

 animal, but how does it find its way out. It is important that 



