180 
Contagious Cattle Diseases in Yorhshire. 
diseases amongst animals in Yorkshire, which, have been col- 
lected by the county constabulary since the carrying out of 
the provisions of the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Acts, 
1869, was placed in their hands. Through the courtesy of 
Lieutenant-Colonel Granville Layard and Captains Hill and 
McNeill, the respective heads of the force in the East, North, 
and West Ridings, 1 am enabled to send you the Quarterly 
Returns of cases of Pleuro-Pneumonia, and Foot and Mouth 
Disease for the last two years. You will see that, as a whole, 
the East Riding, which is the most purely agricultural part of 
the county, has suffered the least, although the port of Hull, to 
which many German cattle are sent, is situated within it. 
This fact appears to negative the idea that the spread of these 
diseases, or their virulence, is proportionate to the introduction 
of foreign animals. The West Riding has suffered the most ; 
this may be attributable partly to the fact that there was a great 
amount of Foot and Mouth Disease existing in this Riding when 
the Act was first put into operation, and still more that the West 
Riding Fairs are the great fairs for Irish cattle. 
" Skipton, Knaresborough, Wetherby, and Wakefield, all have 
large fortnightly lean stock markets, which, especially during 
the autumn, are crowded with Irish beasts, many of most ex- 
cellent quality, and invaluable for the use of our graziers ; but 
others, much over-driven, over-crowded on shipboard and in 
railway trucks, and half starved in their progress from the Irish 
coast, are almost certain to be affected with disease either at the 
fair or on their arrival at the farms for which they are purchased. 
The North Riding, and the West, too, alike suffer from the 
great focus of disease in Yorkshire, the market at York. This 
fortnightly market is at certain seasons crowded with stock, prin- 
cipally imported from Ireland, and from this centre the Foot and 
Mouth Disease has at all times extended throughout the grazing 
districts of Yorkshire, as also did the cattle plague some years 
ago. There is need of a far more effective supervision of fairs, 
and a more general sense of the inconvenience caused by Foot and 
Mouth Disease to farmers themselves, before any real progress will | 
be made in checking it. At present, many farmers who purchase | 
Irish grazing cattle each autumn, intending to winter them on 
straw and turnips, and sell them out iat from grass in the ensuing 
year, consider it almost a matter of course that their cattle will : 
have this epidemic ; and they desire to get it over as early as ! 
possible, before the beasts gain flesh. If the epidemic does not I 
attack them until they are nearly fat, there is a loss of a month ! 
or six weeks grazing; but if they are affected soon after their i 
arrival the loss appears trivial, the attacks seldom lasting more } 
than ten rlays. The Returns, I think, will show that tlie disease L 
