820 
\V. H. DALRYMPLE. 
the labors of the scientist, and should at least read and familiar¬ 
ize themselves with the most salient points connected with those 
most contagions and fatal diseases of our domestic animals which 
periodically decimate our work stock, and bring loss, and often 
ruin to the rural population of our State. It may not be neces¬ 
sary that the planter or farmer should know the ininute differ¬ 
ential characteristics which distinguish the germ of charbon from 
that of consumption under the microscope, or their difference of 
measurement in microns; but he ought to educate himself up to 
the point of knowing as thoroughly as possible the most practi¬ 
cal and intelligent methods to check the disease and prevent its 
spread ; and this can be done at the expense of a very limited 
amount of effort. Reliable literature bearing upon the subject 
abounds, and can be had without money and without price. In 
fact it is forced into his hands, in many instances, in the form 
of experiment station bulletins, reports issued by the United 
States Department of Agriculture, and in many of the most 
reputable of our agricultural journals. Then why should it be 
that our people remain in such supreme ignorance on matters of 
such vital importance as the intelligent handling of some of our 
most deadly animal diseases, although it may be said of them as 
it is of the poor, “they are always with us”? The only feasible 
answer to this question that I can think of is : Our people do 
not read. As we stated at the outset of our paper, the serious 
losses occasioned by disease seem only too readily effaced from 
the public mind. When calamity again comes upon us, we are 
found still in ignorance of the proper methods of attack and 
defense, and we throw aside our judgment, and open wide our 
doors to the inroads of the wily quack, charlatan, or fakir, whose 
opportunity is our adversity. Gentlemen, I think it may be as¬ 
serted, and with a great amount of truth, that the losses in ani¬ 
mal life which have occurred in this State, and in some years it 
has been incalculable, has been the result of ignorance. If we 
take for example that dreaded and fatal disease of live stock, 
charbon, which is at present doing its deadly work in some of 
the parishes of our State, and which has been known to our peo- 
