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REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



The severe frost on the '.51st of May 1856, is supposed by some to havo been the cause 

 of this disease in the grass by destroy in g the vitality of the seed before it arrived at 

 perfection ; "While by others it is attributed to the extreme warm growing weather in 

 June causing an overflow of Bap. 



Although Ave consider the whole subject involved in much obscurity and uncertainty, 

 and requiring further investigation, yet we are satisfied the best manner of treating 

 the disease is immediate resort to restoratives and a change of diet, whereby an in- 

 crease of animal heat and vitality is obtained, and at the same time making an appli- 

 cation of suitable remedies to the affected parts, by cutting off the toes until they 

 bleed, and blue vitriol moderately applied to the foot has in several instances been 

 found beneficial. A free use of charcoal and salt in various ways is undoubtedly a 

 good preventive ; and a careful examination of the hay or grass on which stock is fed 

 is indispensable ; if ergot is found in hay it may be removed by threshing of tramping. 



Of tbe specific nature and properties of the ergot in hay, or whether they are identical 

 with that of rye, we are not well informed. The immediate eil'ects of tho latter in 

 large doses is well known, but it has no affinity to the ordinary known effects of 

 vegetable poisons. What effect Would be produced by its gradual and continual use 

 we are not in possession of sufficient information to warrant us in speaking positively; 

 but we do suppose, after a careful examination, that it operates on the blood of the 

 animal, and unless immediate remedies are applied it proves fatal. 



P. 13 AKRON, M. D., 

 R. M. HART, Esq., 

 J. Y. PEARSON, 

 JONAS BOND, 



Committee. 



The following resolution was unanimously adopted: 



Resolved (inasmuch as the evidence adduced is conclusive), that ergot in hay is 

 the cause of this disease. The association cannot decide that it is tbe real cause of 

 a poison being introduced into the system, owing to our inability to analyze this sub- 

 stance; therefore we desire to ask the editors of our agricultural papers for more in- 

 formation, and to obtain a chemical analysis of ergot. 



In the Chicago Tribune, March 14, 1884, appeared a letter signed J. 

 Hosmer, containing the following paragraph, which, while it refers the 

 disease to a different cause, evidently describes the same affection : 



In 1873-74, in Chariton County, Missouri, the winter was very severe, the mercury 

 going to more than 20° below zero. The people on the open prairie, mostly Germans 

 who had recently moved there, seeing that the native Missourians provided no shel- 

 ter for their stock provided none themselves. In the spring from one to three in a 

 flock of eight to ten had the " black leg." It commenced to separate just where the 

 skin joins the hoof. The animal being in great pain, lapped the infected part, and 

 the poison was thus transferred to the month. It was nothing more or less than gan- 

 grene, as the leg rotted and became putrid. 



In the month of February, 1884, a letter written to the editor of the 

 Breeder's Gazette by Cushman Brothers, of Korth East, Pa., in regard 

 to a strange disease of dairy cattle there was referred to me. This let- 

 ter, written February 19, and a second one from the same gentlemen, 

 dated March 8, in reply to some inquiries of mine, contained the follow- 

 lowing information: 



The dair} T in question contained IS cows, and the disease appeared 

 about January 1, 1884. The first indication was u cocked "ankles behind, 

 the legs beginning to swell in a few hours, and in two days were u as 

 large as the skin could hold.' 7 This swelling only extended as Uigli as 

 the hock joint. In about a week the hoofs began to come off; the parts 

 beneath were red, but there was no formation of pus. The feet weie ap- 

 parently healthy between the claws, the appetite good, the eyes bright, 

 and the cud regularly masticated. The animals had been kept in a 

 warm stable all winter. At the latter date mentioned four had been 

 killed, their appetite having finally failed, two more were very bad, "a 

 scab having formed from top of hoof to several inches above ankle aud 

 leg rotting off;" the foot of one animal had come off at first joint above 

 the hoof, the fore feet of none had been affected but with two the fore- 



