80G 



TEE AGRICULT 



URAL JOURNAL. 



cattle this is exactly the condition of con- 

 tagious abortion. 



The disease must have been with us 

 for centuries. Personally, I have known 

 it for sixty years, and have heard of it 

 from my father and grandfather; yet, 

 strange to say, it is only some thirty 

 years ago that the Government of the day 

 recognised its infectious and contagious 

 nature. There is no bovine disease that 

 can be conveyed in so many different 

 ways — by contact, and by the sense of 

 smell, by human attendants, by wild ani- 

 mals, and in the hair of the infected ani- 

 mals. Once contracted by a single ani- 

 mal, and it rapidly runs its course 

 tbi'oiigli a herd of calving cows and heifer 

 stock. During service it can be conveyed 

 by a cow to the bull, and by the bull to 

 every cow he serves. 



The duration of the infection is put 

 {it three years, if no new infection is in- 

 troduced; but herein lies the difficulty. 

 A farmer has to keep up his milking 

 stock; chiring an attack from 60 to 90 

 per cent, of his animals may abort, so 

 that he is compelled to bring in new 

 stock; he is completely in the dark as to 

 '.whether these new cows or heifers are or 

 are not from aborting herds, and I know 

 farmers at the present day who have never 

 been clear of the complaint for the past 

 twenty years. 



Let the mind dwell for a moment on 

 the facts, for facts they indubitably are, 

 as it needs no stretch of the imagination 

 to grasp that 'the nation is the poorer 

 every year by thousands of calves; and 

 when this is extended back over cen- 

 turies, the thousands become millions. 

 Cattle plague, foot-and-mouth, and plcu- 

 ro-pneumonia were with us but a short 

 time, probably as many years as abortion 

 has existed for a like number of cen- 

 turies, hence the losses from these for- 

 eign diseases fall into insignificance when 

 compared with the losses from contagi- 

 ous abortion. 



It may naturally Ijc asked, if these 

 losses are so serious, and have been so 

 long continued, why have the farmers of 

 the Ignited Kingdom not called upon the 

 Government to introduce I'emedial legis- 

 lation? Or, if they are apilhetic, why 

 have not the landowners and pedigree 

 breeders moved in the matter? 



As in the olden time, before notifica- 

 tion of contagious disease in the human 

 family became compulsory, some farmers 

 who have abortion in their stock may try 

 to hide it from their neighbours anct the 

 public, simply because the knowledge of 

 its existence might prevent them selling 

 their cattle. Each and every farmer 

 hopes to escape a visitation; but he knows 

 that he is helpless to guard against such. 



The remedy wou.ld be simple and not 

 costly. All tbat we need is to schedule 

 the disease under the provisions . of the 

 Infectious Diseases (Animals) Acts. The 

 disease is supposed to run its course in 

 three years; for that time the farm (only) 

 must be an infected area; the tenant can 

 send out milk and other produce as 

 usual; but he must not take on to it fresh 

 cattle stock, unless guaranteed free from 

 the disease, nor must he send out for sale 

 any stock except for immediatis slaughter. 

 In the course of some five or six years, 

 without any pecuniary sacrifice worth 

 mentioning by the tenant farmers, the 

 disease would die out for lack of fresh 

 infection to feed the flame. Su.rely liere 

 is a grand chance for Mr. Hanbury. 



On the Banks of the Nile, 



MR. P. D. SImIZoNS sends the accom- 

 panying verses. He thinks they are 

 well suited to follow the American ac- 

 count of harnessing alligators. 

 On the banks of the Nile 

 A large crocodile 

 Waved his pipe at the westering sun ; 

 He sat on a stile, 

 And rested his smile. 

 Because the day's work was done ; 

 And his numerous snacks 

 Of Nubian blacks 

 Ha l only left room for one. 

 Then a naturalist 

 With a gun in his fist 

 Came over the sands with a yell, 

 For a crocodile skin 

 With a seven-yard grin 

 Was a thing he was anxious to sell. 

 But the vision of night 

 That greeted the sight 

 Of the moon that succeeded the sun, 

 Was a large crocodile 

 That sat on a stile, 

 A-picking his teeth with a gun ! 

 — From " Chatterbox's Christmas Box." 



