440

preventative and cure, wood and cob ashes with salt are used with partial success. We have seen sheep in Vermont and Massachusetts badly affected with this disease as well as in our own State.

The sheep in the more Northern States and Territories of the Great West, are as a rule less subject to disease than those of the Southern States and Territories. This is probably due to the absence of marshy and moist lands, the purer and more elevated atmosphere, the great range of pasturage and the absence or rarity of those insect and vegetable pests which produce and promote disease among these harmless animals.

CHAPTER X.

OTHER FARM Animals-Breeding Swine-Swine HuSBANDRY LESS POPULAR IN THE GREAT WEST THAN EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI-THE STATES AND TERRITORIES MOST LARGELY ENGAGED IN IT-THE BEST BREEDS-MODES OF MANAGEMENT-THE MARGIN OF PROFIT IN THE BUSINESS-DISEASES TO WHICH SWINE ARE LIable-Breeding of Horses, Asses, and Mules for the MarKET THIS PURSUIT VERY PROFITABLE-DOGS-THE SHEPHERD DOG-DOGS FOR HUNTING-The GreyhouND; DIFFERENT VARIETIES-POINTERS, SETTERS, BULL-DOGS, COACH-DOGs, Terriers-MONGREL HUNTING DOGS-INDIAN CUR-DOGS-CROSSES BETWEEN DOGS AND WOLVES-WORTHLESS DOGS VERY DESTRUCTIVE OF SHEEP.

THE whole of "Our Western Empire" reported, at the close of 1879, but a little more than 12,000,000 swine, only about onethird of the whole number in the United States. Iowa had nearly 3,000,000, one-fourth of the whole number, and Missouri another fourth. Of the other half, Texas had a little more than 2,000,000, or one-third; Kansas and Arkansas respectively 1,300,000 and 1,200,000, and the remainder were divided among the other States and Territories; those on the Pacific slope having the smallest numbers. Beyond the Rocky Mountains, rearing swine is not a favorite pursuit with the farmers, partly perhaps because the climate and seasons are not so well adapted to the animal, and partly because there is more difficulty in protecting a herd of

SWINE-Breeding IN THE WEST.

441 swine from the attacks of wild animals, and from other thieves, than sheep or neat-cattle. Sheep are easily driven or led, but the swine seems to have inherited the perversity of his ancestors, and persistently seeks to go in the very direction that he should not. There are, however, hogs and hogs; some breeds are quiet, gentle, and well-behaved, while others, lank, lean and long-limbed, will spring over a fence as nimbly as a shepherd's dog, and though fleet of foot, and of evil and pugnacious temper, possess few or no good qualities to counterbalance these objectionable ones. The Southern swine are not, as a rule, of the best breeds, though there have been great efforts made of late in Texas to improve the stock, and with a commendable degree of success. Iowa is,

after Illinois, the largest raiser of swine in the Union, and in that State, Missouri and Kansas, which follow after in the numbers of their swine (the three States having about 7,000,000, worth about $42,000,000), great efforts have been made to raise only the best stock.

In these States, long experience has led the best farmers to prefer two or three breeds, and their crosses. In Kansas, and we think in Iowa and Missouri, these breeds are the PolandChina, especially as improved by D. M. Megie; the Berkshire, either the English or the improved large Berkshire; various crosses of these two, some preferring the Berkshire and others the Poland-China boar with the sow of the other breed, and the Chester White, either pure or crossed with the Berkshire. A very few cling to the Essex and Suffolk breeds, but the number of these, as well as the advocates of the pure Chester Whites, are decreasing every year. The general opinion seems to be that the Poland-Chinas make the largest and most quiet hogs, and give the best return for the money expended on them, and give the largest litter, but are rather too large in bone, and require a great amount of feeding. The Berkshires have smaller bones, and their meat is in the right place to make fine hams and shoulders, and their flesh is very fine-grained. They are the best for the farmer's own packing, but do not weigh as much at a year or a year and a-half old as the Poland-Chinas, and do not have as large a litter as the Poland-Chinas. It is universally agreed that

the crosses of these breeds make altogether the best animals for market. These crosses should weigh at one year old, when fattened, from 350 to 450 pounds, and at eighteen or twenty months from 650 to 700 pounds. With corn at twenty cents a bushel, and some pasture, and proper treatment, pork can be made in Central and Western Kansas at from $2 to $2.25 per 100 pounds, and it will bring from $2.87 to $3.50 per hundred, live weight. Most of the diseases, to which swine are subject, can be prevented much more easily than they can be cured, and the sensible and judicious swine-breeder will find that, by avoiding crowding, damp and filthy pens or wallows, by occasional changes of pasture, and the use of green food, and mashes when the dry food is too constipating, it will be possible to ward off disease, and to have a perfectly healthy herd of swine. The various forms of worms which infest swine-the tape-worm, the trichina, and the round worms-are, to a considerable extent, the result of gross and foul feeding, and of filthy and close pens. The hog is not an uncleanly animal if he has the opportunity to be clean.

The great losses sustained, for some years past, by those engaged in rearing swine, from the disease variously known as Hog-Cholera, Swine-Plague and Hog-Fever (losses amounting in 1877 to more than $12,000,000), led the United States Agricultural Department at Washington to make, in 1878, a very thorough investigation of the disease, including its history, symptoms, causes, diagnosis, prognosis, post-mortem appearances, preventive measures and treatment. The investigation was confided to four of the most eminent veterinary surgeons in the United States-Drs. H. J. Detmers of Chicago, James Law of Ithaca, N. Y., D. W. Voyles of New Albany, Ind., and D. E. Salmon of Swannanoa, N. C.—each of whom spent months in the investigation, pursuing it independently of all the others, and without conference with them. The results of these investigations were published in a very valuable volume in the autumn of 1879, with numerous colored plates of the appearances of the lungs, stomach and intestines, and tables and records of the conclusions to which they came. These reports are so able and exhaustive, and of so high and conclusive authority, that we be

THE SWINE-PLAGUE OR HOG-CHOLERA.

443 lieve we are doing a valuable service to the farmers of the United States, and especially of the West, in giving a brief summary of the results of their researches. They will serve, at least, to show that the only safeguard against the disease lies in measures of prevention and precaution, which every farmer engaged in raising swine should adopt; that great pains should be taken to keep swine in a perfectly healthy and vigorous condition, and that their pens and troughs, as well as the swine themselves, should be kept clean; that close inbreeding is wrong, as weakening the constitutions of the animals and rendering them more liable to disease; and that where the disease appears, the infected herd should be kept isolated, thorough disinfection practised daily, and all diseased hogs killed at once, and either buried very deeply or burned, so as to prevent the spread of the infection; that the owners of the slaughtered hogs should be repaid two-thirds of their value, if they will report the cases immediately on the outbreak of the disease and follow directions; that all hauling of diseased or dead hogs along public roads or by railroad trains, or in any way exposing other herds to infection, should be prohibited under heavy penalties, and all communication of the infection by fodder, running water or the clothing of swineherds or others, should be prevented; and the lots on which these diseased herds or animals have been penned even for a single night, should be disinfected, and plowed deeply to prevent the spread of infection.

But we can perhaps best benefit our farming friends by giving summaries of these reports in the very words of the veterinary surgeons; and, first, of the

DESCRIPTION OF THE DISEASE.

The disease, though popularly called Hog-Cholera, has really no resemblance to cholera or to malignant pustule. It has somewhat more resemblance to the pleuro-pneumonia which has proved so destructive of cattle; but is not identical with that disease. It is undoubtedly contagious and infectious, and the experiments and researches of these veterinary surgeons, many times repeated and under a great variety of circumstances,

together with their post-mortem examinations, have proved that it can be transmitted, by inoculation and by devouring portions of the flesh of diseased animals, to other swine, and to rabbits, sheep, and dogs as well, and produces the same symptoms and as often the same fatal termination, as where it is communicated by ordinary contact. The veterinarians are agreed in these points, that it is produced by the transmission of a specific germ, a bacillus as some of them call it, into the stomach or circulation, and that this germ is propagated with inconceivable rapidity and may promote diseased action in any organ or set of organs, the lungs, liver, stomach, bowels, lymphatics, kidneys, muscles, nerves or brain, but that the lungs and the lymphatic glands are always affected, and the other organs and tissues, one or more of them often. The best name for it is Swine-Plague or HogFever. The disease does not originate from filth, crowding, and improper or heating food, but when it has been once communicated to any member of a herd of swine, its propagation is greatly accelerated, and its mortality hastened and aggravated by impure and unwholesome surroundings.

SYMPTOMS AND DIAGNOSIS.

The disease is ushered in by a cold shivering, lasting from a few minutes to several hours, frequent sneezing and more or less coughing. The temperature of the body is increased, and though it is a difficult matter to ascertain the exact temperature without a struggle which will, of itself, increase the temperature, yet enough seems to have been ascertained to make it certain that it ranges between two or three and ten or twelve degrees above the normal or healthy temperature. There is also at first a partial, and soon a total loss of appetite; a rough and somewhat staring appearance of the coat of hair; a drooping of the ears (characteristic); loss of vivacity; attempts to vomit (in some cases); a tendency to root in the bedding and to lie down in a dark and quiet corner; a dull look of the eyes, which not seldom become dim and injected; swelling of the head (observed in several cases); eruptions on the ears and on other parts of the body (quite frequent); bleeding from the nose (in a few