TEXAS FEVER A MATTER OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE. 
295 
carrying the germs to infect the pastures and roads on which they 
travel. This fact, so patent to every observing man, demonstrat¬ 
ed over and over again so many times, and now supported by 
hundreds and thousands of facts, is nevertheless contested by a 
majority of farmers, and even in districts where losses are an¬ 
nually occurring, there is far from a unanimity of opinion. The 
losses are ascribed to ticks, to mushrooms, to peculiar characters 
of the vegetation, to acid in the soil, to something in the air, and, 
in fact, to anything and everything but the real cause, which 
there seems to be an extraordinary determination to overlook. 
In the Northern and Western States it is not a difficult 
matter, as a rule, to trace the outbreaks of this disease to the in¬ 
troduction of Southern cattle; but along the border line of the 
infected district, where cattle are being continually driven, and 
where most of the roads aud commons are infected, it is next to 
impossible to discover exactly how very many of the cases have 
originated. And it is just here, where it is doubly important for 
the people to have clear ideas of its origin and nature, that they 
utterly refuse in many cases to be convinced—that they will not 
take the necessary precautions to avoid it, and, as a result, suffer 
most disastrously. 
If the losses from this stupidity were confined to those who 
ignore so plain a fact, we might be satisfied to allow the matter 
to rest; but, as I demonstrated in my report to the Department 
of Agriculture on this disease, the permanently infected district 
is being continually enlarged in this way—the border line is ad 
vaneing farther and farther, and it seems to be only a question of 
time when our whole country will be infected. I say only a 
question of time, but it may be possible that our stock owners 
can yet be roused to an appreciation of the dangers which threat¬ 
en them, and that they will impress upon their representatives in 
Congress the necessity of national legislation for controlling such 
destructive pests. At present we seem to be in the remarkably 
absurd predicament that the States can make no effective laws, 
because this would be infringing upon the prerogative of the 
Federal Government, and Congress will do nothing, for fear of 
violating the rights of the States; so that, between the two, we 
are about as helpless as it is possible for a people to be. 
