24 
W. H. HARBAUGH. 
He has, however, his own ideas in regard to the disease and 
its prevention, and has perfect faith in a compound which he 
gives to the cattle as a preventive during the season of the 
year in which the disease may exist. This compound is a mix¬ 
ture of salt, copperas, sulphur and nitre. It certainly does not 
prevent the ticks infesting his places, as there are as many 
ticks on his cattle as are seen on any other average herd. 
Other farmers have used this same compound, but their cattle 
became affected with the disease and died, notwithstanding 
its use. 
This compound is an ancient one in this section, and is, I 
believe, generally known as the old “ Ruffin recipe.” Next 
season I will test its efficacy on a suitable farm. 
There can be no doubt as to the genuineness of the variety 
of the ticks which are on these places, as Dr. Curtice visited 
both farms and collected the ticks and sent them to Wash¬ 
ington for experimental purposes, but I am sorry to say that 
he has informed me since that they failed to get a brood of 
young ticks from them. During the coming season l will 
make it my duty to collect ticks from such places to ascertain 
if their young will produce the disease elsewhere. 
If it is established that ticks of the boophilus bovis species 
from such places cannot produce the disease, or, in other 
words, if it can be proven that on some places they are really 
harmless to susceptible cattle, such a fact will at least be a 
point in favor of the belief that the tick is an accidental carrier 
of the micro-parasite. 
The fact that the disease is transmitted to susceptible 
cattle with the blood of infected animals is a point in the 
same direction. 
Also, the fact that susceptible cattle may be infested with 
the ticks for several years in succession, and do not develop 
the disease till the second or third year, to some extent sig¬ 
nifies that the tick is not at all times the carrier of the 
disease. 
If the infectious principle of the tick was of the same na¬ 
ture as the venom of a serpent, we would not expeet to find a 
micro-parasite as the necessary infecting principle, but as we 
