BUREAU OP ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



203 



suspend further sales of cattle for the present, and would be glad if you would do tho 

 t>ame. Unless stringent measures are used this destructive plague will speedily ex- 

 tend over the entire country. 

 Very respectfully, &c, 



E. A. CARMAN, 



Acting Commissioner. 



Hon. J. Proctor Knott, 



Frankfort, Ky. 



The Department was informed by the secretary to Governor Knott 

 that the contents of the foregoing letter were promptly communicated 

 to Messrs. Frisbie & Lake. 



The following letter, in reply to the one forwarded by the Depart- 

 ment on September 13, was received from Messrs. Frisbie & Lake : 



Cyntiiiana, Ky., September 15, 1884. 

 Sir : We are in receipt of your communication without date, hut, from postmark, 

 mailed at Washington on the 13th instant, informing us that you have been informed 

 by " Dr. D. E. Salmon, Chief of the Bureau of Animal Industry, that twenty head of 

 cattle purchased by you [us] of M. G. Clarke, of Ceneva, 111., left that herd at a time 

 when contagious pleuro-pneumonia existed in it." From card heretofore published 

 by us, a printed copy of which is herewith inclosed, you will find a correct statement 

 as to our purchase of Mr. Clarke, which will show the inaccuracy of Dr. Salmon's 

 information as to our purchases. Mr. Clarke, from whom we bought, says it is not 

 true that at the time our cattle left his herd contagious pleuro-pneumonia existed in 

 it, or that it ever has. You further say in your letter: " I am also informed that some 

 of these animals now in your herd, when recently examined by Dr. Trumbower, an 

 Inspector of the Bureau of Animal Industry, showed vory marked symptoms of this 

 disease in its chronic form." By reference to our inclosed card you will see Dr. 

 Trumbower's statement to us of the condition of our herd after he concluded his exami- 

 nation. That statement was prepared in Dr. Trumbower's presence, read to him, and 

 after corrections made by him was said by him to contain nothing but the facts as he 

 found them. 



Dr. Trumbower, when he came to our place, was given every facility and our hearty 

 co-operation. He began his examination on the 30th of August and concluded it on 

 September 1. We demanded of him the result of his investigation, and he gave it to 

 us as set forth in our card. From him nor other official of the Government did we 

 receive any further information or communication of any kind regarding our herd. 

 It may be imagined how painful was our surprise to read in the Commercial Gazette 

 of Cincinnati of the 12th instant the following dispatch from its special correspondent: 



"Lexington, Ky., September 11. 



"A committee of prominent cattle-men went to Frankfort to-day to endeavor to pro- 

 cure quarantine orders against the herd of Jerseys at Cynthiana, Ky., the property of 

 Frisbie & Lake. The United States veterinary surgeon examined the cattle and found 

 a number of them infected with pleuro-pneumonia in its worst form. Armed with a 

 report to this effect they went to Frankfort, but failed to make anything by it, no 

 Kentucky law applying to the case. The cattle-men will probably have to take the 

 law into their own hands unless the State provides for them. Fears that Ohio and 

 other States will quarantine against Kentucky are expressed, which would seriously 

 affect the market and cut off sale of a large amount of fat, salable cattle here." 



Also the following special to the Louisville Courier- Journal : 



"Frankfort, Ky., September 11. 

 "Reliable and satisfactory information having been received by the cattle-breeders 

 of this section of the State that veritable pleuro-pneumonia was now affecting tho 

 herd of Frisbie & Lake in the county of Harrison, a largo delegation of breeders came 

 to the city this evening to hold a consultation with the governor on the best means of 

 preventing a spread of that dread disease. To give their cause of complaint its due 

 importance, they showed the governor the following statistics: 'From 1711 to 1769 

 it destroyed 200,000,000 head of cattle in Europe; from 1793 to 1796, from 300,000 to 

 400,000 in Italy; and in 1842, 300,000 head in Egypt. In 1865 it had proved fatal to 

 500,000 head in Great Britain in eighteen months.' The same article says, 'the malady 

 is propagated by contagion, that treatment is inefficacious, and that extinction of tho 

 poison by slaughter has been shown by the experience of a century and a half to be 

 the only satisfactory and economical method of contending with it.' The attorney- 

 general was present at the meeting, and said that the laws of Kentucky only provided 

 for the impounding of diseased cattle, and could not cover the threatened danger. In 

 the matter under advisement the breeders, among whom were Mr. A. J. Alexander, Mr. 

 Lucas Broadhead, and others of this county — also of Scott, Fayette, and Bourbon Coun- 



