2 . BULLETIN 767, IT. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
The oak is so common that it is unnecessary to give a botanical description in this 
place. We may recall the fact that the fruit at its base is placed in a cup, which is 
pedunculated in the variety under consideration, but sessile in Q. sessifiora, while the 
opposite condition exists in the leaves of the two forms. 
Independently of the wood and the tan bark which it furnishes for manufacture and 
fuel, the oak annually provides for the food of animals its acorns, and, in some regions, 
its leaves. 
It is to the leaves exclusively that it is necessary to call attention ; they occasion in 
the live stock which consume them, under some special conditions, accidents of serious 
importance. 
In the early spring in the low country, and a little later in the plateaux, when the 
buds of the trees of our forests are opening and the young leaves have still the light- 
green color which tints the country so beautifully in the spring, it happens that the 
farmers whose supplies of forage are exhausted pasture their animals in the forests. 
This is the custom of the inhabitants of the forests, of the charcoal burners, of the wood- 
men who work the cuttings, and is frequently a necessity for the small farmers of the 
wooded country. The cattle, for a long time accustomed to dry feed and finding little 
grass on the soil of the forest, eagerly eat the fresh twigs and young leaves upon them. 
If they are grazing in a thick coppice, their eagerness has no limit at first. 
After some days of this feeding, there appears, at first only on young animals, and es- 
pecially it has been noticed on those with a thin skin and white hair, then later in the 
milch cows and the rest of the herd, the symptoms of a disease observed and described 
for a long time under the characteristic name of "mal de brou" or of "maladie des 
bois." In the South it has been observed following grazing in lands where different 
shrubs grow, and especially the Spanish broom (Genet D'Espagne) whence it is com- 
monly called genestade. 
Symptoms. — The animals, with a full appetite at first, eat less and less, they rumi- 
nate only a little, and apparently with difficulty; they are eventually affected with 
constipation, which increases and their excrement becomes hard and coated. They 
remain a long time lying down, and from time to time look at their flanks as in cases 
of dull colic, then get up and urinate. The liquid is emitted in jets and is then of a 
dark-red color. The secretion of milk in the females is lessened and eventually fails 
entirely. There is some fever, trembling of the muscles, and weakness of the hind legs, 
the coat is rough, the dorsolumbar region more sensitive than normal, the mouth cold, 
and the saliva reduced. 
Three or four days after the onset of the disease the rumination is completely stopped, 
the patients stamp, exhibit colic, and have the abdomen drawn up; the pulse is hard, 
the heart action agitated, the respiration accelerated and labored, the shaking of the 
muscles violent, and they attempt to urinate frequently. 
Always a striking symptom is the color of the urine; it is constantly dark, but with 
variations of shade which pass from a clear red to the deep dark color of Malaga wine, 
with the brown shade- predominating. 
If the animal is withdrawn from the cause of its illness and receives the necessary 
care for its condition it will most generally recover. 
The prognosis is bad when the constipation is succeeded by a foamy dysentery with 
very fetid and abundant feces. Then the patients very quickly become feeble, 
and die in a condition of marasmus. 
In the great majority of cases the "mal de brou" does not make rapid progress; 
nevertheless, there occurs, exceptionally, a kind of sudden explosion of illness. 
There is a sudden and abundant expulsion of bloody urine with violent colic and 
sometimes intestinal hemorrhage; under these conditions the patients have succumbed 
in 24 hours. 
