58 
N. H. PAAREN. 
ment in 1877 confined their estimates of loss by disease to the hogs 
assessed in May, 1877, which does not include a large proportion 
of the spring pigs, that enter very largely into the aggregate loss 
sustained each year, and which are not included by many assessors. 
The annual loss to the State is very difficult to estimate, or even 
approximate,* without official enumeration, as many correspondents 
give the average weight per head of dead hogs, and overlook the 
loss of flesh sustained by animals affected from the time the dis¬ 
ease is contracted until death, which loss in weight in many cases 
is over 50 per cent. 
The contagions pi euro-pneumonia of cattle is stealthily, slowly 
and almost uninterruptedly gaining ground in the eastern States. 
If it were not for the fact that the current of trade in cattle on 
this continent is almost exclusively eastward, this disease would 
long ago have found its way to the Pacific coast. Nevertheless it 
would be folly to expect immunity from this plague in the west; 
for at no distant day will its presence here be a settled fact! 
And what should prevent it? No measures, legal or otherwise, 
exist for the prevention of its spread. The farther this plague 
extends westward, the less will its progress be interfered with, 
because the almost entire absence of qualified veterinarians leaves 
the farmers and stock owners in ignorance of the presence 
of the disease among their stock, until serious and wide¬ 
spread losses will have been sustained; and when the local or 
state authorities at last shall be compelled to take the matter 
under consideration, it will have spread far beyond our control. 
The extension westward of the contagious pleuro-pneumonia will 
most likely be effected by means of trade and traffic only. The 
disease affects blooded cattle as well as common stock. If com¬ 
mon stock is not shipped westward, blooded stock is, and by this 
means it may be brought right in among cattle ranges in the terri¬ 
tories. The cattle trucks may be another source of its spread 
westward. We all know that the use of these are not confined 
to the length of a track of any of the eastern railroad corporations, 
but traverse the net-work of tracks extending over the whole 
length and breadth of the land. Contemplate for one moment the 
result, when once this plague gets a foothold on the large cattle 
