Table showing the average cash value of farm products per acre for the year 1868.

Table showing the total average cash value of the above products per acre for the year 1868.

CONDITION AND NUMBERS OF FARM STOCK.

The mildness of the present winter has been favorable to health and condition of all kinds of farm stock. In the more northern States there have been few sudden changes of temperature, few alternations from one extreme to another, and very little weather of much severity or discomfort to the denizens of the barn and stock-yard. The reported losses from

diseases of all kinds are less than for any year since this record has been systematically kept, showing conclusively that all cattle diseases are far less the result of climatic causes, or of feeding upon injurious plants and unwholesome fodder, than the effect of starvation, exposure, and neglect.

The condition of cattle, as compared with their status last year, is improved, except in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Kansas, and Nebraska. Cases of pleuro-pneumonia are reported in the vicinity of the cities of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. The Spanish fever, communicated by southern cattle, caused a brief season of panic, and occasioned heavy local losses at points of reshipment in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and to a smaller extent eastward to the Atlantic coast. Abortion has been somewhat prevalent on dairy farms of the middle and eastern States. Black tongue, black leg, hollow horn, and a variety of "distempers," "murrains," and other undefined forms of disease are reported, but not to the usual extent. Less than one county in ten of the entire number reported the prevalence of disease, further than the slight ailments which rarely prove fatal. Not a county in Ohio or Michigan furnishes evidence of the existence of unusual disease among cattle.

Those States in which winter shelter is not provided are marked by a lower condition of farm stock, and a higher rate of mortality, than Maine or Minnesota. The southern States, the best portion of the country for stock-growing, have almost literally no provision either for feed or shelter in any portion of the year. As a business, stock production there is little more than an appropriation of spontaneous growth, costing neither money nor labor, except in the in-gathering or harvest.

The reports relative to sheep are not so favorable. The wool business has been comparatively unprofitable of late, and the inevitable result is neglect, short commons, a supply of moldy hay, and the roughest treatment, in too many instances resulting in leanness, weakness, and the insidious approaches of disease. Where they have been suitably cared for they are healthy, and as Merinoes are in present disfavor, disease is mainly among flocks of that breed. Were it not for the culling process, by which several millions of the poorest (sixty thousand in some cases in a single county) have been remorselessly slaughtered for their pelts and the small modicum of fat that could be drained by hydraulic pressure from their juiceless carcasses, the ravages of disease would have proved far greater. This weeding out of the victims of poverty will result beneficially in elevating the average of health and condition. Wool-growers whose fears have overcome their judgment and caused the depreciation of their flocks or the abandonment of their business, will ere long regret their hasty action. Already a reaction has commenced; prices of wool are stiffening, and the value of sheep is slightly advancing. If there is no legislative interference with the growth or manufacture of wool, a better day will soon dawn, and the time will prove auspicious for enlarging rather than abandoning the production of wool.

The States in which the comparison, in point of condition, is unfavorable with last spring, are Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Kansas. The losses from disease, dogs, wolves, and freedmen and other plunderers in the South, together with the depreciation from slaughtering for pelts, present an unfavorable comparison with the previous year in almost every State in the Union, and represent a total reduction in numbers of not less than 4,000,000. Yet all these losses exclusive of the voluntary destruction of sheep for their wool, skins,

and fat, make an aggregate of loss no greater than that of the previous year.

Horses, being valuable, are generally well fed and stabled, and appear to have been remarkably exempt from disease the past year. Glanders, which became so prevalent in the territory swept by the ravages of war, is a disease yet dreaded, though far less common than in 1866 and 1867. Blind staggers is yet common, especially in miasmatic localities; charbon is fatal in Arkansas and elsewhere in the southwest; lung fever and other diseases are occasionally reported.

The following notes, furnishing briefs of the most noticeable data received, will give an idea of the extent and character of the diseases of farm animals during the past year, though the returns are necessarily deficient in veterinary accuracy:

DISEASES OF CATTLE.

For several years past there has been some loss of cattle in mountain pastures of New Hampshire, from some unknown form of disease. The cattle are generally found dead before any appearance of sickness has been observed. A few cattle in Massachusetts have died from eating "smut corn." Pleuro-pneumonia has been very fatal for the past twelve or fifteen years in King's County, New York. Since vaccination has been practiced, the loss has been diminished greatly.

A new disease prevails among milch cows in Erie County, New York. Symptoms: watery eyes, yellow matter running from nostrils, breathing heavy, blood passing from the intestines, cramps, resulting in death in eight to twelve hours. A few cases have been saved by giving calomel in doses of twenty to thirty grains, in cold water, once in three or four hours.

It is remarked in Pennsylvania that disease among horned cattle, so destructive during the last few years, has almost entirely disappeared. The principal remedy applied appears to have been simply a complete renovation of barns and stalls, ventilation and free use of lime, and a regular, healthy diet.

Pleuro-pneumonia has prevailed considerably in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, proving fatal to animals first attacked, but becoming milder, so as to admit of treatment in subsequent cases.

Our correspondent in Baltimore County, Maryland, says:

We have had the pleuro-pneumonia in our county among cattle during the past three years. The malady has been very destructive, some individuals losing almost their entire herds. The disease is of a highly contagious character, and the most skillful cattle surgeons are unable to control it. The losses have been much lighter during the past year. Sixteen valuable Ayrshire cows perished in one stable; a few other losses, varying from five to fifteen, occurred. In most of the stables where the disease prevailed with great virulence the previous year it has subsided, owing to a strict quarantine. The careful isolation of the infected herds had the desired effect in reducing the malady to a much smaller scale.

Pleuro-pneumonia attacked one herd in Prince George County, Maryland, and four or five died. The remainder were sent to Washington for beef, and the disease did not spread.

In Lawrence County, Indiana, there has been considerable mortality among calves weaned in the fall, dying during the winter with bloody diarrhoea. After death there was found underneath the skin a quantity of yellow serum; and even before death this yellow serum would collect in dependent portions of the body, where there was loose skin, as under the jaw. About half of the calves that were attacked died.

The inhumanity disclosed in reports of losses from "want of shelter," from "starvation," and from "small quantity of food," is sickening

and disgusting to any one possessed of a single kindly impulse. There is no portion of the country where shelter and feeding are not requisite at times. In Texas, where cattle grow and thrive by millions, are places where, during the present season at least, "fully twenty per cent. die in the latter part of the winter and early spring from poverty." It is gratifying to remark, amid the general neglect of this latitude, that in one county in Georgia "those that have been housed look well," and that in another "they are better than usual from being cared for."

THE SPANISH FEVER.

The ravages of the Spanish or splenic fever were greater last season than ever before. The mode of transportation, by steam eastward from the frontier railway stations, and up the Mississippi river in steamboats, brought the contagion into the heart of the country and disseminated it from the Mississippi to the Atlantic. Formerly it was confined to the frontiers, the length of time elapsing in travel on foot sufficing to eliminate the virus of the disease from the systems of the emigrating cattle before their arrival on the banks of the Mississippi.

A few cases are reported in the eastern States-in New York, New Jersey, and in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

In Ohio, slight losses were suffered in Hamilton County; six head, among two car loads, in Wyandot; a few cases in Greene, Mercer, and Hancock.

In Indiana, from four to six hundred cases in Benton County; two droves were destroyed in Jasper County; one hundred deaths are reported in Marion, and losses are given in White, Newton, and Hendricks.

In Illinois, among other reports, are losses in Ford County of five hundred head; one hundred in Grundy; large numbers in Champaign, (valued at $150,000 at least ;) forty in Douglas; nineteen in Clinton; and small losses in Massac, Pulaski, Effingham, Cook, Iroquois, Macon, Pope, Morgan, Alexander, St. Clair, and Du Page.

In Missouri heavy losses occurred; in St. Louis there were one thousand four hundred cases of cows and three hundred of heifers; in Newton the loss numbered three hundred. In many other sections of the State the disease was more or less prevalent, as in McDonald, Butler, Clark, Polk, Bates, Cass, Henry, Montgomery, Benton, Mississippi, Cedar, Dade, and Hickory; but the details of these returns, together with those of other States, are reserved for a more complete history of the outbreak.

Five western cattle died of Spanish fever at Millerton, Dutchess County, New York, where they were quarantined. The infection did not spread.

A large number of Texas and Indiana cattle were brought into the cattle yards and abattoirs in Hudson County, New Jersey, last August, sick with Spanish fever. The State Agricultural Society forbade any more being brought into the State. Those sick were quarantined, and after a thorough examination were put into rendering vats and the yards and pens disinfected with carbolic acid. No disease afterward appeared. Three inspectors were appointed by the State society, who quarantined all the suspected cattle on arrival; and when it proved sickness from any infectious disease they were killed and put in the rendering vats.

A lot of western cattle were driven through Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, last summer, stopping over night on a farm three miles

south of Greensburg. Eight or ten head took sick during the night, and were left with the farmer to be killed. The symptoms were said to be those of Spanish fever.

Reports of the existence of this disease have come from Georgia, but the symptoms are not sufficiently defined for its absolute identification. Our Lamar County (Texas) correspondent states, as the result of his observations in Texas and other States, including Illinois at the time of the greatest virulence of the disease there, that there is no such disease in Texas, or south of the latitude of middle Tennessee or Arkansas. He mentions the fact that hundreds were herded for months on Grand Prairie, Arkansas, at the season of the highest excitement in Illinois, without disease among either Texas or Arkansas stock. The following points are indicated as the result of his observations:

1. That it did not show itself until the very hot weather that visited that section, although Texas cattle had come in nearly two months before.

2. That Texas cattle were free from any signs of disease, and improved rapidly on arrival.

3. That, although healthy, they left disease behind them; and all home cattle feeding upon the same pastures or drinking at the same fountains were in danger of the contagion.

4. That removal to new pastures and clean water would stay the progress of the disease among those not yet affected by it.

5. That native cattle would not take the disease from running on new pasture with other native cattle, although the latter might be suffering and dying with the disease.

6. That the disease, its mode of action and of communication, and the remedies, were mysterious.

It is reported from Fayette County, Texas, that Spanish fever only prevails among unacclimated animals. A teaspoonful each, of spirits of turpentine, copperas, and sulphur, is claimed there to be a certain cure it given in time.

The following extracts, from detailed reports published in the Monthly, give an indication of its prevalence in the central portions of the west:

MISSOURI.

Newton County.-Prevailed during the summer and fall. Loss not over three hundred head.

McDonald County.-Five per cent. of all native cattle have been lost. Texas cattle do not suffer unless there is an admixture of more than one-half native blood. Remedies prove unavailing.

Clark County.-Has visited some portions of the county.

Butler County-Three cases reported. Remedy used: a drench made by mixing halt a pound of Epsom salts with a strong decoction of peach-tree leaves-one quart of the latter.

Polk County.—In the eastern part of the county, in August, from the passage of Texas cattle through that section.

St. Louis County.-Fourteen hundred milch cows and two hundred and fifty to three hundred heifers and steers lost by this disease.

Bates County. To some extent, but less than in years past.

Cass County. Few losses this year, as diligent watch has been kept against droves. Henry County.-Loss two hundred to three hundred head.

Montgomery County.-Forty-five head lost last autumn. Only three of those attacked recovered.

Benton County.-A few isolated cases.

Mississippi County.-Slightly; brought in from Cairo, Illinois, by Texas cattle. Loss forty head.

Cedar County.-A few cases imported with southern cattle.

Dade County.-During the summer and fall, along the highways where Texas cattle stopped to graze; the loss was twenty-five per cent.

Hickory County. To some extent, but no new facts noted.