UNIV. OF FL Lib. 
DOCUMENTS PEP" 
U.S. DEPOSITORY 
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 
► BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY, 
A. D. MELVIN, Chief of Hurkau. 
EFFECTS OF TICK ERADICATION ON THE CATTLE 
INDUSTRY OF THE SOUTH. 
By W. F. Ward, 
Senior Animal Husbandman, Animal Husbandry Division. Bureau of Animal 
Industry. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Since 1906 the Bureau of Animal Industry of the United States 
Department of Agriculture has employed veterinarians and assist- 
ants in various Southern States in the work of exterminating south- 
ern cattle ticks. This parasite not only sucks blood from the cattle 
upon which they live, but also transmits to the cattle the micropara- 
site which causes the dreaded disease Texas fever or southern tick 
fever. This disease kills more cattle in the South than all other 
diseases combined. The work of maintaining a Federal quarantine 
line and preventing ticks from infecting new areas north of this 
line and at the same time eradicating the ticks from an area of 
198,802 square miles in seven years time was no small task, but on 
November 1, 1913, this had been done, and more than one-fourth of 
the infected area had been cleaned up. The work is being continued, 
and farmers are taking it up more readily than was formerly done, 
so that greater progress should be made in eradicating the pest than 
has been accomplished heretofore. The increased values of cattle 
due to their scarcity, and the realization that far better cattle can be 
raised when they are not ticky, now act as stimulants to the tick- 
eradication work. 
The cattle of the southern portion of the United States vary 
greatly in size and quality, according to the location of the farms 
and the care which has been exercised in handling the herd. The 
native southern cattle are small in size, variable in color, usually poor 
in milking qualities, slow of growth, and poor in quality from the 
Note. — This paper details the recent improvements in the cattle and pastures in the 
tick-free areas of the Soul hern States and suggests methods of improvement which should 
be adopted as soon as ticks have been eradicated from any section. Intended for distribu- 
tion in the tick-infested region, 
29209°— 14 1 
