349 
HOG CHOLERA SERUM. 
A successful demonstration of the value of the new gov- 
ernment serum for preventing hog cholera was lately con- 
cluded at South Omaha, Nebraska, by the Bureau of Animal 
Industry of the United States Department of Agriculture. 
The efficiency of the serum has been proved many times in 
the past, but in order that its value might be brought more 
strikingly before the people of Nebraska a demonstration 
was arranged for at the Union Stock Yards at South Omaha 
in cooperation with the Union Stock Yards Company of 
Omaha. 
The stock yards company purchased thirty pigs, weighing 
from 40 to 60 pounds each, from a farm which had been free 
from hog cholera for several years. These pigs were brought 
to the stock yards, and on July 23, 1910, four of them were 
injected with blood from hogs sick of hog cholera. These in- 
oculated pigs were placed in a pen by themselves, and within 
five days they had become sick, at which time eighteen of 
the remaining pigs were each given one dose of the serum, 
while the other eight pigs were not treated in any way. The 
eighteen serum-treated pigs and the eight untreated pigs 
were then placed in the same pen with the four pigs which 
had been made sick by inoculation. , 
The four pigs which were first given hog cholera all died, 
and the eight untreated pigs all contracted the disease from 
them. The eighteen pigs which were given serum, and which 
were confined in the same pen with the four original sick 
pigs and with the sick untreated pigs, remained perfectly 
well, and were finally turned over to the officials of the 
stock yards company upon the completion of the experiment, 
September 17, 1910. 
The Department of Agriculture does not distribute this 
serum to farmers, but is endeavoring to bring the value of 
this method to the attention of the stock-raising interests in 
order that they may arrange to secure State funds for the 
manufacture and distribution of the serum. The govern- 
ment authorities consider that this new serum treatment, if 
properly applied, will result in the saving of millions of 
dollars. 
That agricultural education in the public schools is receiv- 
ing earnest attention from the United States government is 
evidenced by the recent issue of two faymers’ bulletins for 
the use of teachers from the Department of Agriculture. Bul- 
letin 408 is entitled, “School Exercises in Plant Production,’’ 
and Bulletin 409, “School Lessons on Corn.” Both are by 
Dick J. Crosby, specialist in agricultural education, office of 
