5
paigns. As was remarked in last year's Report District Boards would be well
advised to leave mule-breeding alone at all events for some years to come. The
Superintendent of the South Punjab however thinks that good might
be done by distributing good sires to lambardárs and influential agriculturists.
I am inclined to think that there are very few headmen who, either on their own
behalf or as acting for the village community, would care to undertake the
expense and responsibility of keeping up an animal which has not the
sacredness attaching to the bull.
In 1896 the Inspector-General Civil Veterinary Department raised the
question of the advisability of branding selected mares for breeding ordnance
mules. All district officers were asked to give an opinion on the proposal and
with the exception of three who had no opinion to offer all expressed themselves
as opposed to it. Since then no further action appears to have been taken in
the matter.
IV.—CATTLE DISEASE—IVESTIGATION AND PREVENTION.
Cattle disease.
9. From the standpoint of the people of the Punjab horse-breeding is
of very secondary interest compared with the vitally
important question of the investigation and prevention of
cattle disease. They contribute through the District Boards no inconsiderable
sum for veterinary purposes and when the Civil Veterinary Department was first
constituted hopes were raised that at last the agricultural stock of the Province
would receive some attention and care. These hopes have been fulfilled to only
a small extent as the time of the two Superintendents has been fully taken up
with their duties in connection with horse and mule-breeding. It is perhaps
natural that this should be so but in common fairness it is essential that some
arrangement should be made by which the farm-stock of this Province with its
large agricultural interests should receive at least as much consideration as horse
and mule-breeding. The proposal to provide a third Superintendent who will
be exclusively concerned with cattle is still under discussion but even should
that take practical shape only part of the inequality will be removed. I question
very much whether it will not be necessary to recast the present programme of
the duties which the existing Superintendents are called on to perform. Neither
of these officers has been able to visit the scene of any epidemic of cattle disease
and all remedial and preventive measures have been carried out by the local
Veterinary Assistants. This, to say the least of it, is not a satisfactory condition
of things. Table M. appended to this report shows that 59,231 cases of the
various forms of cattle disease were reported during the year all over the
Punjab. Rinderpest alone is responsible for 13,284 cases of which 5,931, or
nearly 45.4 per cent., were fatal. These figures so far as they go are encourag-
ing seeing that last year 30,220 cases were reported and the mortality
percentage was 58.8. Veterinary-Captain Joslen considers that this disease is
endemic in Kángra and certainly statistics go to show that the number of
cases in any particular tract varies with the distance from that district It is
to be hoped that the Superintendent of the South Punjab will find time next
year to visit Kángra and devise some means of checking this scourge at its
source. Last year there were just over 4,000 cases of anthrax, 74.6 of which
were fatal. This year only 2,235 cases were reported but the death percentage
rose to 81.0. This disease is most prevalent in Amritsar and the submontane
districts between Amritsar and the Sutlej but. it is curious to note that the
most affected parts have the smallest percentage of fatal cases. Foot and mouth
disease was at once more prevalent and less fatal than any other, the percentage
of deaths being only 4.6.
The number of reported cases of disease of all kinds is 59,231, or 25 per
cent. less than the total of last year. The main reason for this large decrease is
undoubtedly the great mortality among cattle during the two years of scarcity
and as the weakly and diseased were the first to succumb to insufficient food
we find that the percentage of deaths to cases was very much less this year
being 17.9 per cent, compared with 30.7 in 1896-97. Again it must be
remembered that, as pointed out in previous reports, all deaths from disease are
not reported. However even if we take the figures as they stand and assume
Rs. 25 to be the average value of each animal which died we find that last
year the agricultural community suffered a loss of Rs. 2,66,175 owing to cattle
disease. The real loss must have been nearer four lakhs.