Dec. 1, 1894.] Supplement to the " Tropical Agriculturist," 
429 
NOTES ON THE CATTLE MURRAIN OE 
CEYLON. 
I am of opinion that the virulence of the disease 
is not devsloped before the first well-marked 
symptoms are capable of being noted. 
I most fully endorse all that is here stated as to 
the highly contagious nature of this disease, and 
the very many and heretofore uuthought of 
means of conveying and propagating the disease. 
Having been well aware of the highly-insidious 
nature of the disease for many years, and having 
possibly bred and reared more stock than any 
other individual during my period in the Island, 
I say with considerable confidence that I have 
safeguarded the herds under my care, and never 
once had an outbreak of the disease, although 
the very animals conveying food for the stock 
have been subjected to the disease and died ou 
the public roads. I have been laughed at for the 
precautions I have taken, hut most confidently 
assert, that, until the necessity for all and every 
possible precaution be recognized by the Ceylon 
Government, and most strictly taught and en- 
forced, their efforts to arrest outbreaks of rinder- 
pest will be a waste of time and money. 
The earliest symptoms should be diagnosed, and 
immediate and unremitting means taken to stamp 
out the disease, while there should be constant 
watchfulness for its first appearance by a ready 
staff of trained and educated men belonging to 
an Agricultural Department embracing the length 
and breadth of the Island. No great scientitic 
knowledge is in this case required, but a sound 
liberal agricultural education, which should 
embrace a knowledge of stock, and the diseases 
they are liable to ; and most especially should 
these men be trained to deal promptly with out- 
breaks of disease, as a well-trained fire brigade 
would ou the first outcry of lire. 
It is quite a common mode of dissemination 
for the disease to be conveyed for many miles by 
animals seemingly healthy and there communi- 
cated to others, thus causing a fresh outbreak. 
I have not seen the disease in sheep and goats, 
but have been assured by natives living adjacent 
to forests where deer abound, that during severe 
epidemics, deer are attacked and die in large 
numbers. 
I have no experience in inoculation but have a 
case fresh in my mind where I considered pro- 
tective immunity came in: — A pair of cart bullocks 
were purchased and bought from Colombo to this 
district — they were warmly housed and well fed 
and attended to. About ten days after their arrival 
they were found to be ill, and having been asked to 
look at them, I found in both animals well-marked 
symptoms of rinderpest. There being no conve- 
nient building into which they could have been 
removed, they were allowed to remain in the room 
1 found them in, only separated by a wall a few 
feet high from an adjoining room where some six 
cows and their calves were stalled. All that was 
if iiu' to further separate the sick from the healthy 
was to fill up the open space between the wall 
and the roof by a double fold of coir-matting. 
Then the following preventive measures were 
taken, viz: — A strong solution of Jeye's disin- 
fectant was made up and freely sprinkled over 
every pari of the house, the animals, and even 
tho coolies in attendance This was kept up day 
and night while the disease lasted, and the 
animals may be said to h ive lived in an atmo- 
sphere of the disinfectant. The c jws and calves in 
the adjoining stall were also freely sprinkled, 
and the atmosphere kept highly charged. No 
treatment was employed further than rice conjee 
with treacle while the animals could not eat, 
Their mouths were well washed daily with a 
solution of the disinfectant. The disease in the 
two bullocks ran its course. The usual discharge 
from nose, mouth and eyes, and purging were 
well marked as all other characteristic symptoms. 
Both recovered, but one m ide a bad recovery. I 
considered that the disease was developed iu the 
bulls as they were working in a cart — -it being 
monsoon weather. Not one of the cows or calves 
was attacked, although two of the cows had 
come along with the bullocks iu the same trucks 
from Colombo. 
THE VACCINATION OF LAND. 
The Public Opinion of October 12th republishes 
an article from the American Architect with the 
above title. The researches into the action of 
" bacteroids " found in the root tubercles of 
certain plants supported the possibility of soil- 
inoculation by these organisms, with the result 
of naturally increasing the amount of nitrates 
iu cultivated land, and s j reducing the expenditure 
on nitrogenous fertilizer. There is no doubt that 
cultivators of the soil have for hundreds of years 
past recognised the beneficial work of these nitri- 
fying organisms without at the same time identi- 
fying them as the cause of the results these same 
cultivators appreciated. To explain the influence 
of certain leguminous plants on the soil, — bringing 
it into a condition tit for the growth of nitrogen- 
consuming crops,— it was first thought that°the 
nitrogen imported into the soil by the leguminosie 
was got by the leaves from the atmosphere; 
but this theory was abandoned for the explanation 
that the nitrogen was brought up from the subsoil 
by the long roots of the.-e particular plants. 
Next came the discovery of the "bacteroids" 
contained in the root-tubercles, to which we 
must now attribute the credit of working up 
the atmospheric nitrogen into nitrates. Of' late 
further light has been thrown on this subject, 
and we now learn that the tubercular growths 
found on the roots of plants which harbour 
" bacteroids "' appear only when these plants 
begin to feel the want of nitrogenous food 
in the soil,— in other words, when the soil 
cannot supply the plants with assimilable nitro- 
genous compounds. We may thus infer that a 
tolerably fertile soil, or one furnished with the 
average amount of nitrogenous material, will not 
be benefitted by the action of bacteroids, so as 
to have that amount increased, since the root 
tubercles do not occur ou plants growing on such 
soils. It is only when the plants find themselves 
starved of nitrogen owing to theliw fertility of 
the soil that the outgrowths capable of fixing 
atmospheric nitrogen are developed. In fact 
these t ubercles may be looked upon as a form of 
disease brought on by nitrogen— hunger ; but most 
strange of all, it is this very disease which is tho 
means of supplying to the soil that which it lucks, 
