The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-09-02
TexaS C0ttle FeUer
 Cost, Cause dr1d Cure

| Of cattle In Alabama of only s9 is away | below the real truth. And thls great loss is the result of Texas cattle fever. and the consequent quarantine of southern cattle which to all the great markets can only be shipped and sold for i'm mediate slaughter.
 When we look at cold facts as they are, we see that the estimated loss yearly to Alabama of s6,o0oO0O is only in error because 1t Is too low!
 The Cause.
 Now the sole and only cause of Texas cattle fever is q microscopic germ which is alone carried and transmitted by that peculiar tick known to science as boophi Jus annulatus, or the cow-loying tick.
 This Is cOncluslvely proven by the fact that these germs are always found by the microscope in the blood of cattle sick with the Texas fever and In the bodies of these hated fever ticks and nowhere ase. Again, only cattle infected by these ticks ever have the Texas fever And yet again ticks have been picked off the body of a COW dying of the fever in Texas and sent by mall 10 the United States experiment station in Maryland, 1000 miles away, and then purposely placed in contact with cattle chosen for the experiment, and in due time they took the Texas fever, which they could not contract In any other way. And this makes demonstration strong as proof of holy writ"
 The Cure.
 Since these germs alone cause the dis ease, and since these germs are alone conveyed and transmitted by the ticks, 1t stands to solid reason that to utterly kill the ticks, all of them, is to utterly stamp out tho contagion.
 But how can this be done on live cat tie, and then how can 1t be done on the infected pastures? And the answer of both science and of thousands of expe- riments is that ticks have no lungs, and yet must have vital air or die and that to this end their skins are, by nature, full of air holes or air pores, and ticks alone breathe through their skins, Now simple grease is not poison to cattle, and so cover the ticks on cattle with a generous quantity of any oily grease yes, any oily grease, and you will hll up close up, clog up, and plug up those air holes or air pores, and every tick so covered with a film of grease must die and always so treated does die!
 And this will utterly kill all ticks on live cattle. But on all cattle covered with ticks there will be found many small and a few in comparison very large. These are big, fat fecund females each ready to lay from 1900 to 5000 eggs. Pick off these and burn them. Because, and close attention here, no female tick ever lays her eggs on the body of the COW brute. No. never. But when the female tick, fecund with a myriad of eggs, is ready to lay them. she always erawls out on the rough hair of the COW or steer and falls off on the ground, and there on grass or herbage proceeds to lay from 15O0 to 5000 eggs, and all of theso will in 13 to 40 days hatch out into 2 young active and hungry seed tick, and as many female ticks will fall off the same COW brute. why, the inev- table and sure result will be that the field, or pasture, or cattle range, will soon be sown with swarms and colonies of young and hungry seed ticks--hungry for the blood of the COW brute. And then, when a new COW or steer comes browsing along, or by chance lies down, yes, then these young and hungry seed ticks will by scores and by hundreds crowd up It's legs to where the skin is thinest, between the Hanks. or else where and there bite, and bore <and 1 suck blood, and grow, and moult, and | bite into the animals blood the virus of the deadly Texas fever. And here MT Editor. Is set forth in clear English all 1 that is really known of tick propagation
  knows enough to know that every living creature. from tick to elephant. must 1 either eat or starve to death.
 And so just rigdly yes. very rigidly keep all cattle off tiek-infectured pas t1ros for a time long enough for those eggs to hatch, and a few weeks longer and all those young seed ticks will onu must. and do starVe to death Grease we'll and honestly applied will kill al tue ticks on live stock, and starvation will kill them on all the pasturesl Anc when the ticks are all dead then a long | farewell to Texas fever--and quaran- tines, and low price to and for tho cattle of Alabama!
 Mir. Editor, this letter has been writ ten for the information of farmers ant cattle owners. Here is. in a word, the whole plan, and gamut and philosophy of tick eradication. Grease, and a littl, ] surphur added, will kill all the tick; 1 on cattle. Starvation will kill them or ! the ground. NO ticks, no Texas fe yer" But just so long as tick infested cattle are permitted to run at large in Alabama, just so long will Alabama be infected with ticks and Texas fever | Yes. even to the end of the world.
 Now the recent statute of Alabama wa. ] wisely considered. and 1t was a mode law But @ sixteenth amendment re- gently adopted. it is feared, nay, it is positively known. to be entirely other. wise. The writer is not going. either this i year or next. to be q candidate for of fee in Alabama. This sixteenth amend | mend makes the whole law of no ef- feet except in those counties where a stock laws operation over all or at least Lhaf the area of tine counties
 ('Y, ip the progress of the world we \ only march as fast as the world N Al Aes. It Is easy to convince and move