186 
REPORT UN THE CATTLE OF SPAIN. 
dant and nourishing, and their flesh is esteemed even in 
England and at Madrid.* 
Experiments made occasionally to cross the Spanish breed 
of cattle with the Durham have not hitherto been successful. 
But, in my opinion, improvements in obtaining a variety of 
breeds of cattle are greatly to be desired. 
Professor Prado has thus offered his views as regards the 
absence, hitherto, of the rinderpest in Spain. I think that 
he, and all who study the subject, would object to the high 
feeding with oil cake, &c., as practised in England, for cattle 
in a southern country and climate. Objection might also be 
taken to the rich rank pasture often produced by the stimu¬ 
lating quality of manure. A Spanish farmer once told me 
that all animal manure injured the grass, in its wholesome 
quality, for the first two years after such manure was used, 
and that it inevitably imparted deleterious qualities to the 
herbage, and to the cattle who fed on it. ‘^Too much animal 
manure,^^ said he, “ induces scrofula in the animals who eat 
the grass or vegetables forced by it; and also in those who 
eat the wheat grown on such lands This remark was 
gravely made by a reflecting, serious man, and it struck me 
as curious in these days of (in England) forcing our soils into 
richness by all manner of fearful abominations, instead of 
contenting ourselves with draining, irrigation, and the old- 
fashioned top-dressing of leaves and lime. There may be 
some common sense in the Spaniard's idea that the artificial 
produce of putrid animal manure will partake of its rotten¬ 
ness. 
As to the cattle plague, there being no importation to 
speak of from other countries of either sheep or cattle, we may 
be permitted to hope that Spain will escape it. The general 
idea seems to be here that, if it does arrive, it ought Just at 
first, to be met with the most vigorous and rigorous ‘^stamp¬ 
ing out,^^ and that then isolation, and non-intercourse, and 
entire separation, are the best modes of combating the evil. 
A clever article appeared lately in a Seville paper on the 
origin of the rinderpest and its effects. It attributed the 
original disease in the Russian steppes to starvation, and 
poisonous inoculation by flies from the putrid bodies of the 
dead (starved) cattle; in Germany to the filthy state in 
which cattle are kept there—to stall-feeding and over-working, 
and to permitting the cattle to feed on decayed refuse of vege¬ 
tables j in England to over-care and over-feeding, producing 
a habit of body which predisposes to infection of every kind; 
* No “ artijicial^’ food, such as boiled roots or oil-cakes, is ever given to 
cattle in Spain. 
