1 Aprin, 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 307 
The most successful way of destroying the ticks upon cattle is to pick 
them off by hand and burn them. This, of course, can only be done with a 
few animals upon any one farm, and these animals must be such as can be 
easily handled. The picking must be repeated every day or two during the 
summer, and must be thorough to be successful. This is not as difficult or 
tedious a method as might at first thought appear. Where picking is imprac- 
ticable, substances may be applied to kill the ticks. For this purpose the 
simple oils and fats are useful if repeated with a few days’ interval. Crude 
cotton-seed oil or lard either alone or, what is much better, mixed with flowers 
of sulphur, will destroy most of the ticks, and if repeated often enough will 
probably prevent any from coming to maturity. The petroleum oil with 
sulphur, such as has been used, for dipping cattle, is more efficacious, but is 
difficult to obtain in small quantities and of uniform quality. Probably within 
the next year Secretary Wilson will be able to arrange with one or more of 
the oil companies to supply a thoroughly tested, safe, and efficient mixture for 
this purpose. This cannot be done, however, until further investigations are 
made. 
Another plan which would probahly be successful in eradicating these 
ticks is to keep all cattle from the pastures for 1 or 2 years. The exclusion of 
the cattle must be absolute, however, for a single animal walking across the 
grounds might drop enough mature ticks to contiiue the infection for another 
year. In restocking grounds cleared of ticks great care should be observed to 
allow only cattle free of ticks to go upon them. There can be no certainty in 
_ such cases except by dipping the cattle in an approved tick-killing mixture, and 
consequently a successful dipping method would also for this purpose be 
invaluable. 
It must be evident that dipping the cattle going out of the infected 
district and inoculating those going in are only temporising expedients through 
which no improvement in present conditions relating to the infection can be 
expected. While of great importance, these measures should not be considered. 
the end of our resources or the limit of ourhope. States situated as are Virginia, 
Tennessee, Arkansas, and Oklahoma Territory should move at once to annihilate 
utterly the tick and thus secure a position in the non-infected district of the 
country. The improved condition of the cattle as a result of freedom from the 
irritation of these pests, and from the loss of the blood which they abstract, 
would well repay the inhabitants of thoseStates for the required effort, and the 
free market for their cattle would be clear gain. All of the remaining States 
in the infected district should make a systematic effort to reduce greatly the 
extent of territory afflicted with this contagion and to confine it to comparatively 
insignificant areas. | 
‘This is a matter which will require time and careful education of the 
people. But the education should begin now and be continued without inter- 
mission. ‘The extension of the infected district, which was progressing at an 
alarming rate previous to the enforcement of regulations for the movement of 
infected cattle, has been checked, and in some cases whole counties once 
infected have been freed from the infection. It is the part of wisdom to con- 
tinue this good work and to press back the infection all along the quarantine 
line. This is one of the great tasks which our country has before it—a task 
of special importance to our farmers north as well as south, and one which is 
80 pressing that it should be considered by the Nation as of equal importance 
with the encouragement of our manufactures and the extension of our foreign. 
trade. Fortunately, Congress has always been willing to aid such work, but a 
point has now been reached where the States individually must also take it up. 
In the article on dipping cattle (Texas Fever Problems.—III., Q.4.J7., 
Vol. 4, Part ILI., p. 227) it was erroneously stated that the total loss among the 
first lot of dipped cattle shipped to Illinois was thirty-two head; there were, in 
fact, only twenty-four head lost out of this shipment. 
W 
STB oa ke EEE 
Sas a EE 
Sx ve 
, 
ir 
