224 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



other bay would bring 810. At Keating's the animals fed on tbe hay 

 of 1S82 escaped the disease entirely, while those fed upon the hay har- 

 vested in 1883 alone suffered. 



Evidently the year 1883 was a favorable one for the production of 

 ergot over a very large area of the Western States, but the local condi- 

 tions of soil and situation and the time of cutting the hay had a very 

 great influence on its development. All of the ergoted hay of the 

 affected farms in Kansas was cut from bottom lands, and in Missouri 

 and Illinois it was grown on very level prairies the drainage of which 

 was very imperfect. Again, the early cut hay was comparatively free, 

 when that allowed to ripen was badly affected. 



In brief, then, our reasons for considering the disease to be ergotism 

 were, first, the character of the lesions, which were such as have always 

 been ascribed to ergotism in the past, and as could scarcely be produced 

 in so many animals from any other known cause ; and, secondly, the 

 extraordinary proportion of ergot found in the food of the animals on 

 every affected farm. 



It is very probable that the cold weather had a considerable influence 

 in developing the effects of the ergot, and the greater part of the cases 

 were first noticed during or soon after such weather. Many cases oc- 

 curred soon after a severe ice storm or sleet. Again, with the appear- 

 ance of milder weather new cases ceased to appear, although the same 

 hay was still being fed. The two or three new cases in Missouri were 

 the only exceptions to this statement. 



I have no doubt, therefore, that the cases which I investigated, and 

 the similar cases which occurred about the same time in other localities, 

 were cases of ergotism. Professor Law, of Cornell University, Profes- 

 sor Stalker, of the Iowa Agricultural College, and Professor Faville, of 

 the Colorado Agricultural College, have seen similar cases in their re- 

 spective States, and concur in the opinion that they are due to poison- 

 ing from ergot. 



CHARACTERS WHICH DISTINGUISH THIS DISEASE FROM EPIZOOTIC 

 APHTHA, OR FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE. 



History. — The foot-and-mouth disease of Europe is a specific fever which 

 only arises by contagion from other affected animals. In the whole his- 

 tory of America there have beenno spontaneous outbreaks of this disease, 

 and in Europe the conviction is growing stronger every year that it has 

 no other cause than contagion. We may accept it, therefore, as a fact 

 that foot-and-mouth disease cannot occur in the United States except 

 by the introduction of virus from abroad. 



When a disease having some resemblance in its symptoms to foot-and- 

 mouth disease is found in the interior of our country, more than a thou- 

 sand miles from the ports where the contagion must necessarily be in- 

 troduced, it becomes a matter worthy of the most careful consideration 

 to determine if there was any means by which this contagion could 

 have been transported to the affected herd. When a contagious dis- 

 ease is spread broadcast over a country it may be difficult or impossi- 

 ble to trace many outbreaks ; not so, however, with a single outbreak 

 produced by so virulent a contagion as that of the disease under con- 

 sideration. In such a case it would be remarkable if it could not be 

 traced. 



In the present instance the animals of the affected herds had been 

 purchased or raised in the neighborhood ; no foreign animals or people 

 had been upon the farm where the first attacks occurred. Foreign cat- 



