The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1915-08-21
THE TICKS TOLL.
Costs the South $50, 900, 900 a Year
to Board the Pest.

The eradication of the tick is es-
sential to the development of a sound
agricultural system in the south. Live
With the tick out of the way, the
south can produce cattle free from
many of the handicaps of other sec
tions. Land is still cheap and much
of it is making no money for anyone.
The pasture season is long, feed can
be produced at minimum cost, and on
ly inexpensive shelter is required.
The tick, however, sucks from every
animal on which it lives blood that
could be sold for meat or which would
go to make milk.
The tick irritates cattle, gives them
Texas fever, and keeps them from
turning grass and feed into flesh and
milk.
The tick, therefore, is getting a
large proportion of every pound of
cattle feed used in the tick region.
The tick, by compelling the en-
forcement of costly and annoying
guarantees, adds to the cost of get
ting cattle to outside markets. Ticky
cattle are worth less at home and
bring less in the quarantine pens at
the packing houses than free cattle.
Tlcky cattle can not be transshipped
and must go for immediate slaughter.
Free cattle can be transshipped to
markets where prices are higher or
can be sold as feeders. Ticky cattle
bring only what the local packing
house cares to offer. The difference
in price between ticky and free cattle
runs from " to / cent pound, or So
to $40 head.
The tick kills imported pure-bred
stock and thus makes it hard for the
south to raise any but scrub cattle.
The banks will not lend money on
cattle in the tieky country, although
they are glad to help farmers in tick
free counties to buy pure-bred ami
mails and develop the dairying and
cattle-raising industries. The tick,
by making it improbable to raise
cattle on cropped farms, cuts down
the manure supply and reduces the
fertility of land and production per
acre.
The tick, by keeping down farm
profits, keeps down the value of farm
land. The tick is an enemy of the
farmer, the merchant, the banker,
and the people of the south.
There is no need to support the
costly tick. One-third of the tick-in-
Tested districts of the south have
proved that it. is easy to get rid Of
the tick forever and to build UP q
great and profitable cattle industry.
Dipping cattle in an arsenical bath
will kill the ticks and enable the ami
NAL to give more milk on to put ON
flesh and bring a better price in the
meat markets. The immediate profit
to owners, it is conservatively es-
timated, will be from $3.50 to $3.50 "a Il
head. 4
When the tick has been dipped out,
the. farmers Cal prnb bine to inapart
pure bred bulls, which, With native
cows, will produce better stock and
increase the yield Of beef or milk and
butter fat.
With the tick out, sound farm man
agement, that uses idle pasture lands
and waste products, keeps up fertility,
and permits all-year profitable use of
labor, becomes possible. Forty acres
with cattle free from ticks will pro-
duce as much as SO acres where cattle
are kept out by the tick.
The arsenical bath puts into the
pockets of the farmers the heavy cost
of the ticks incessant meal. 1t costs
the south $50,000,000 year to board
the tick.