5o8 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
July 29 
weakness, and has given splendid fruiting results. 
Early Gem potatoes showed signs of ripening on 
July 1. We used some of them on July 2 and found 
them mealy and delicious. The variety is a small, 
round, pink sort and a good yielder. The Ohio and 
Ohio Junior are still (July 13) far from ripe on the 
same soil. No indications of mildew are yet visible. 
White mildew on the grapes was noticed for the 
first time this morning. I hear of the “ red rust ” in 
some vineyards nearby. This disease ruined most of 
the Delawares and some other fine sorts hereabouts 
last year. My favorite, El Dorado, never looked more 
promising than just now. It is really showing itself 
prolific according to the standard of Worden and 
Niagara. 
I have to report a curious phenomenon from my pear 
orchard: Flemish Beauty has never rusted or cracked 
on my place. This year, on June 4, I noticed that the 
leaves and young fruit were sorely smitten, the 
fungous covering being a thick, brown coat, greasy 
and strongly adherent. The entire tree looked “sick.” 
To-day there is scarcely a trace of the malady, and the 
fruit is developing fine form, size and color. We did 
no spraying. It was a case of cure by letting alone. 
Onondaga County, N. Y. John t. Roberts. 
TEXAS FEVER, OR “TICK” FEVER. 
COMMENTS ON SOME AUTHORITIES. 
This disease, if such it may properly be called in the 
light of recent investigations, would scarcely be recog¬ 
nized by this name in many sections of the country. 
The following are the additional names by which it is 
commonly known, viz : Spanish fever, acclimation 
fever, red-water, black-water, distemper, murrain, 
yellow murrain, dry murrain and bloody murrain, the 
name murrain, with one or the other adjective, being 
the one used in this section of the country. Texas 
cattle having brought the disease prominently before 
the public, Texas had to stand the brunt, though, in 
all probability, hundreds of cattle perished genera¬ 
tions before the first case was known in Texas, cer¬ 
tainly many years before she was admitted into the 
Union. We have record of it as far back as 1814, at 
which time the people of Virginia had already estab¬ 
lished a quarant ne against South Carolina cattle. 
Popularly the disease is considered exceedingly con¬ 
tagious. The “ Specie 1 Report on Diseases of Cattle 
and Cattle Feeding,” published by the Department of 
Agriculture, and from which many of the statements 
in this article are gleaned, classes Texas fever among 
the infectious diseases of cattle, though, in so doing, 
it fairly contradicts itself. I venture to assert that 
in one sense it is not a disease at all, let alone a con¬ 
tagious or infectious one. A disease to be contagious 
or infectious must be communicable from one indi¬ 
vidual to another by a transference of at least its 
germs from the one to the other To be transferable, 
it must actually have existed at the time in the indi¬ 
vidual from which it is transferred. The fact that a 
disease may be transferred by injecting the blood of 
the sick into the veins of the healtby is far from mak¬ 
ing the disease either contagious or infectious. 
The records of 80 years ago go to prove “ that these 
cattle infected others, while they themselves were in 
perfect health.” Read the foregoing quotation twice. 
The same view is expressed by the Department of 
Agriculture to this day. Note what it says : “ It is 
characterized by the peculiarity among animal diseases 
that the animals which disseminate the infection are 
apparently in good health, while those which sicken 
and die from it do not as a rule infect others.” And, 
“ in regard to the manner in which the disease is com¬ 
municated, experience shows that this does not occur 
by animals coming near or in contact with each 
other.” Again, “ The infection, so far as we know, is 
not spread by the saliva, the urine, or the manure of 
cattle from the infected district.” 
Then how do they communicate it ? Healthy 
cattle communicate a disease of which they themselves 
never dreamt ! Worse still, they communicate a dis¬ 
ease which we are told they do not themselves com¬ 
municate at all, as “it is an indirect infection.” These 
healthy cattle, we are told, infect the pastures, roads, 
pens, etc., and another lot of healthy cattle, suscepti¬ 
ble ones, “ obtain the virus second-hand from these.” 
What virus have these healthy cattle ? But this is by 
no means the most wonderful feature, for, as will be¬ 
come apparent further on, the virus is not obtained 
second-hand after all, but is communicated by creat¬ 
ures, which, at the time the reputed infection takes 
place, may have no existence whatever, not even in 
the embryo deposited egg stage, and the very possi¬ 
bility of whose existence is still veiled in obscurity ! 
What Does Kill the Cattle P 
Now I may be asked, “ If Texas fever is not a disease 
how is it that it kills so many cattle ? ” Is either arsenic 
or strychnine, or the bite of a rattlesnake a disease ? 
All three are the causes of many ^deaths. Small-pox 
is a disease and a contagious one. A man may com¬ 
municate it to his wife. If she recovers, does it follow 
that the healthy child (born months or weeks after¬ 
wards among surroundings absolutely free from even 
the traces of the virus) is capable of communicating 
the disease ? This we are called upon by the lan¬ 
guage of this in the main able article to believe. 
It may be objected that the small-pox analogy is not 
perfect, and that I should inst ad have used a ven¬ 
ereal taint. To this I retort that the objection is a 
begging of the question. Moreover, small-pox in a 
modified form, vaccination, the virus being taken 
from cattle, may be inoculated and the person thereby 
become practically proof against small-pox. But who 
believes that in consequence of this the subsequent 
offspring of such a person can in turn inoculate 
another ? Cattle, particularly while young, can be 
inoculated against Texas fever. So we are told by the 
Report and the experience of many. This I heartily 
indorse as true, but when I am called upon to believe 
that this inoculation is performed by creatures be¬ 
cause they are the offspring of beings who imbibed 
the virus (?) from “infected healthy cattle,” my judg¬ 
ment cries, Halt! 
No doubt the reader is prepared to say that I am 
making a pretty mess of it. For if in any way Texas 
fever is not a disease, why does everybody speak of 
the infected districts ? Why does everybody say that 
the sun rises and sets ? Mistakes may become cur¬ 
rent and regular expressions, and I myself must make 
use of some in this article in order to render it intel¬ 
ligible. More properly speaking, we should speak of 
the infested districts. Infested with what ? Ticks! 
With them ceases my issue with the “ Report,” except 
in so far as may be necessary to corroborate the fore¬ 
going. 
Symptoms and Effects of Texas Fever. 
Texas fever is caused by an organism which lives 
within the red corpuscles of the blood and breaks 
them up. It is therefore simply a blood disease caused 
by the destruction of the red corpuscles. How this 
organism gets into the blood we can only conjecture, 
but it is no more strange than that blood poisoning 
should sometimes set in from a wound exceedingly in¬ 
significant in appearance. This organism does not 
belong to the bacteria, but to the protozoa. An idea 
of its minuteness may be gained by taking a pea and 
marking thereon a dot about the size of the periods 
used in the reading matter of The R. N.-Y. Such a 
dot will represent the relative size this organism bears 
to an or inary red blood corpuscle. Now divide this 
dot by 5,000, and you will approximately arrive at the 
actual size of one of these organisms. The immensity of 
this minuteness is such that the mind is incapable of 
drawing a picture of it in fancy. 
When this destruction of the red corpuscles takes 
place rapidly, we have the acute, usually fatal, 
type of Texas fever, which is always witnessed in 
the height of the Texas fever season, namely, the 
latter part of August and the early part of Sep¬ 
tember. Note that it is usually very hot and dry 
at this time of the year. The, in the main, non-fatal 
type occurs later in the season when the weather is 
cooler and more moist. Note this also : A mild form 
of it likewise occurs sometimes earlier in the season, 
but, unless all possible precautions are taken, and 
sometimes in spite of these, such early cases of the 
mild type usually become acute as the Dog Days 
progrr ss. 
The acute cases prove almost invariably fatal, but 
this fatality is mainly due to secondary causes, the 
digestive organs of the animal becoming diseased 
from beiDg overtaxed by vainly endeavoring to get 
rid of the various waste products. The bile contains 
so much solid material that it stagnates in the finest 
bile canals, and chokes these up completely, and this 
in turn interferes with the nutrition of the liver cells, 
causing them to undergo fatty degeneration and to 
perish. The functions of the liver being thereby com¬ 
pletely suspended, death is but the natural result. 
The bowels, as a general thing, are constipated, 
and, on dissection, the feces and partly digested food 
will be found hard and dry; hence the appellation dry 
murrain. Not always, but nearly so, the animal will 
be found to pass blood-colored urine, from which fact 
the disease has derived the name bloody murrain, and 
a case of this kind is almost synonymous with sure 
death, this being an indication that an enormous de¬ 
struction of corpuscles is likewise taking place in the 
kidneys. From the yellowness of the mucous mem¬ 
branes and fat it derives the name yellow murrain 
A very marked feature of Texas fever is that it is 
communicated, regardless of their health, through the 
agency of cattle from the South moved into non-in- 
fected districts, or is communicated to cattle moved 
into the infected district. The disease is usually de¬ 
veloped during the first summer, and adult animals, 
particularly milch cows and cattle in good condition, 
stand poor chance of recovery. The reason for this I 
will presently consider, but want to say right here, 
by way of parenthesis, that blood from an animal 
with Texas fever injected into the veins of a healtby 
animal will cause the latter to sicken and die within a 
few days. But this is far from saying that the disease 
is in any manner contagious. And, mark you before 
we go any further, that if cattle from the South are 
shipped North after freezing weather sets in the 
chances are that they would no more infect Northern 
cattle than a harrow shipped from a Texas ranch 
would be likely to be used as a curry-comb at Ellerslie 
farm. 
Our scientific investigators, will, no doubt, agree 
with me in saying that, if not another case of Texas 
fever were to occur until the present generat'on of 
Southern cattle had been converted into beef, a fine 
cow shipped from New York to any of the infected 
districts about the first day of August, of whatever 
year it might be, would stand but little, if any, better 
show of escaping Texas fever than if she were shipped 
this or last year. Why, then, lay the blame on the 
cattle ? j. c. 8ENGER. 
* (To be continued.) 
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writer to Insure attention. Before asking a question please see If It Is 
not answered In our advertising columns Ask only a few questions at 
one time. Put questions on a separate piece of paper.] 
No Chess About This. 
C . M. L., Center Lisle, N. Y.—I have two acres of 
Clawson wheat which looks very fine. Tc-day, while 
looking at it, I noticed a place about 10 feet wide and 
20 long that looked peculiar. I went into it and found 
it nearly all like the three heads I inclose. There were 
a few dead heads in it. To what species do these 
heads belong, and why did they appear there ? Are 
they chess ? If so, why are there not some in other 
parts of the piece ? Years ago, a farmer here told me 
that he had sowed a piece of wheat in the fall, and 
the next year there wes nothing but chess. I never 
bel eved it, but may have to now if this is chess. 
Ans—N o, this is not chess at all. It is Triticum 
repens—Couch grass, Quack grass, Twitch grass, 
Wheat grass. You will probably find more or less of 
it in various parts of the field. It happened to be able 
to stand the unfavorable conditions that killed the 
Clawson in the spot you speak of. 
How Many Eygs Per Leghorn Pallet ? 
0. T. D , Philipsburg, Pa. —Please ask your readers 
to reply to the following question : A hatches in an 
incubator and brooder 200 White Leghorn pullets. 
They are raised in brooders, well housed in batches of 
50, well (but not too well) fed, well cared for with 
ample range on a farm, and commence to lay at six 
months. How many eggs may A reasonably expect to 
get by the time they are a year old, taking an average 
of years ? 
Ans. —It is very difficult to give an intelligent an¬ 
swer, first, because there are great variations in the 
laying qualities of different families of Leghorns, and, 
second, because much of their future usefulness as 
layers depends upon how well they are grown and 
cared for up to the time they commence laying. As 
A’s pullets do not lay until six months of age, it is 
evident that they are not of the best laying strains, 
or were not as well and properly fed and grown up 
to that time as they should have been. Then, again, 
the time of year when the pullets were hatched would 
make considerable difference in the number of eggs 
they would lay by the time they are one year old, 
especially in this Northern climate ; for instance, pul¬ 
lets hatched in April and May, and that get well ma¬ 
tured and begin laying before cold weather, are bet¬ 
ter prepared to and will lay better than those hatched 
in July or August, especially during their first winter. 
But to answer the question directly, I will say that A 
should reasonably expect his pullets to lay 100 eggs 
each by the time they are one year old. I am well 
aware that this is away beyond what the average hen 
is doing, yet I know of many flocks of Leghorns that 
will average that number at that age, and some that 
considerably exceed it. c. h wyckoff. 
Fertilizing: Berries Through a Mulch. 
E. B. P., La Plume, Pa. —I have a plot of 1)4 acre of 
strawberries which were picked this year. They were 
jet last year on sandy soil with a gravelly subsoil from 
which two tons of clover hay (per acre) were cut July 
1. The aftergrowth was plowed down in September ; 
the ground cross-plowed in November and plowed 
again in April; then harrowed with the Acme and 
the plants were set May 1. Half a ton of the Stock- 
bridge strawberry manure was applied in July, after 
which the rows were allowed to mat till the most of 
them were two feet wide with a space of two feet be- 
