276 
G. A. JOHNSON. 
small pond fed by a spring or seap. This outbreak occured in 
Marshall county, and I will refer to it again. I will try to 
show that the peculiar conditions of the feed found in this section 
of the state were associated with, if they were not the cause of 
the disease. 
The early spring of this year was quite wet and these ponds 
were all filled with water, then there was a month or two of 
weather, during which a rank growth of vegetation sprang up in 
the beds of these ponds, then in June we had some heavy rains 
which filled the ponds thus submerging this vegetation that had 
grown in the ponds and it soon began to decay, and as the pas¬ 
tures were getting short the cattle fed near to and in these ponds 
thus eating more or less of the decayed grass, and about this 
time this disease began to appear, often several outbreaks, situ¬ 
ated considerable distance apart, would occur about the same 
time. 
In the Marshall county outbreak before mentioned, the cattle 
drank from a pool probably about twenty feet wide, and forty 
feet long, fed by springs further up the swale. But the bottom 
and banks of this pool were covered by a submerged and 
decaying vegetation very similar to that found in the larger 
ponds. 
Another fact worthy of notice in connection with this outbreak 
is, that on this farm there were two herds of cattle, one of about 
twenty head, composed of young cattle, dry milk cows and one 
bull was kept in the pasture on the hills and drank from the pool 
before described. This herd was attacked with this disease and 
the bull and two heifers died, while the other herd composed of 
about ten cows in milk, were kept in the bottom pasture and 
separated from the other herd by a barb wire fence, d he 
cattle in this pasture drank from a small creek that ran through 
the pasture. None of the second herd were affected with the. 
disease. 
In the outbreaks that occurred during the spring of 1892, the 
general conditions were somewhat different, but the conditions 
of the feed were similar. The spring was an exceedingly wet one 
