The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1884-04-17
What to Do About Animal Disease.

There has not been before IN many
years such general health among Amer
lean cattle and hogs rs there is now.
The late Swine Commissioners of
whom visited twenty-six States-found
practically no disease. There is, and
probably always will be. occasional
trichina, very small percentage, but
the ''experts" know little or nothing of
its cause; it affects our pork perhaps no
more than that of other countries; and
the one and easy safety is in thorough
cooking. The "cholera," which has
been made excuse for selfish sensation
alism so costly to producers, had dis
appeared last fall, according to official
admission. But how about pleuro-
pneumonia? Not an item of proof has
been brought against the many compe-
tent witnesses who testify that there is
very little OF that.
Whence, then. all this noisy af1irma-
ton? 1t emanates from few persons
already in Government employ and
naturally anxious TO enlarge and per-
petuate their easy places. Every slight
local sickness is magnified and tele-
graphed over the whole land, as was
the case the other day in Columbia
County, n. Y. The alarmists are
thoroughly organized; they have been
working toward this one end half a
dozen years, and it is proverbial that
plea is much more active than protest
Bat we are not saying-and have never
said-that there is no pleuro pneumonia
in the Atlantic States. 1t would be
strange if there were not, with our fire.
quent cattle importations from the in
fected fields of Europe. Let what there
may be be stamped out but do it in
a sensible, business-like way.
If the few States claimed to be in
fected are not deemed capable of deal
ing with the disease, as in Mas 'achusetts
and elsewhere, then let Government
put the whole matter into the hands of
some one practical, honest business
man, with authority to quarantine. to
buy, to kill and bury or burn, calling to
his aid all necessary assistants and CO.
operation; and then let him present the
bill. with vouchers for every item of ey-
pense. But to organize for this simple
work the proposed new Bureau of
Animal Industry" and that, too, in
connection with the agricultural De-
partmcnt" at Washington, and equip
it with quarter OF a million dollars
and twenty men appointed by a politi-
cal intrigue, is to repeat on mammoth
scale the 'hog cholera" Disgrace and
the ''grasshopper" folly of past years,
$50 of .'foot-and-mouth disease" of
which we have lately heard in Maine
and Kansas. That, too, if it is here
at all, was also imported. Get rid of
it at once, in the same simple way
above suggested; and our coasts once
clear of these much -talked-Of sources
OF danger, let us see that we stop
bringing any more of either infection
across the Atlantic-s quarantine
restrictions seem to prove Intellectual.
For why should the vast cattle interests
of America be put in jeopardy for the
profit of the few who ship cattle here
for speculative purpose? We have a
good plant of all the leading thorough
breeds of Europe: let US make the best
OF them, and likewise of our own
hardy, healthy natives which contain
elements capable of unsurpassed devel-
opment.
But, after all, it is one comfort to re-
fleet that this costly sensationalism
which has characterized the agitation
of "contagion'' will not be wholly
without compromising results if it serve
indirectly to draw attention to the i'm
portant truth that health in domestic
animals, as in human creatures, can
only result from wholesome food, pure
air, comfortable quarters and general
provision for maintenance of strength. |
Western hogs cannot keep well, nested |
in mud and cold, or in stys reeking
with filth, and eating frozen, mouldy
corn: nor Eastern cows in crowded, un
ventilated stables. with fermenting
brewers grains. glucose meal and half
decayed ensilage as insufficient feed.
When all stOck-keepers humanely re-
gard the comfort of their animals there
will not be hook for hungry alarmists |
to lay hold upon. ~ Y. Tribune.