I 
404- D. E. SALMON. 
that some very stringent measures should be adopted at once. 
The alarm is as unexpected as though a fire had broken out, and 
the emergency is so unprepared for that not unfrequently the ill- 
considered regulations enforced result in more real loss to the 
u 
community than would be caused by the disease itself. 
From a consideration of the facts which I have gone over, 
however, it is very evident that it is unreasonable and unjust to 
compel the owner of the Southern cattle to do more than keep 
these animals securely fenced upon the infected pasture until 
after a killing frost, and to bury beyond the reach of dogs any 
that may die. Where the infected pasture adjoins a road or 
neighbor’s field, on which there are susceptible animals, it might 
be advisable, for complete security, to build a second fence which 
would keep the dangerous cattle from coming within a rod of 
such road or field. But to go upon a man’s premises and kill his 
animals, sick or well, and compel him to pay an exorbitant price 
for the slaughter and burying, as may be done in outbreaks of 
this disease by the laws of some States, is an outrage for which 
there is no justification in the character of the affection. 
The Southern cattle may infect pastures and roads, but there 
is not a particle of satisfactory evidence that they can dissemi¬ 
nate the disease in any other way; and after the first really 
severe frost such grounds are no longer dangerous. If, therefore, 
these cattle are quarantined upon the infected pasture where 
they cannot come within a rod of other animals they can do no 
more harm. The sick native animals do not propagate the disease 
either directly or by means of pastures; they are consequently 
harmless, and it is questionable if the authorities should interfere 
with them, farther than to prevent their sale for food while dis¬ 
eased. 
Finally, it must be a very extensive outbreak which will jus¬ 
tify restrictions upon the ordinary traffic in the native cattle of 
any township or county. If a farmer has one infected field, that 
certainly is no sufficient reason why he should not be allowed to 
market animals which have not been upon that field since it was 
infected ; and it is even less reason for quarantining his neighbors. 
It is true that the roads may be infected and that cattle driven 
