May 25.-The experiments were commenced by placing a healthy cow between the two sick ones. She was fed very sparingly, to make her get her food from the two neighbors, by which she would be exposed to their breath as much as possible, and made to swallow any saliva which might be dropped upon the hay.

Each animal was exposed in this manner twenty-four hours, some of them more. After all had been exposed, one of the sick cows was killed, and the existence of pleuropneumonia fully confirmed by examination after death. The amount of disease was large; both lungs were diseased; their substance and the pleuro investing them. The disease was pronounced, by those present, pleuro-pneumonia, of the same character as that existing in Waltham and Lexington, and believed to be contagious pleuro-pneumonia.

The other sick cow was with calf, and was preserved for continued observation. The evidence of the existence of pleuro-pneumonia in this animal was believed by those present to be complete.

All these cows, except my own, were kept, after exposure, in the same shed, but were not allowed to come in contact with the remaining sick cow. They were fed on hay only. They were examined daily, and their condition recorded.

July 11.-Forty-eight days after exposure, the heifer from Maine, which had been recorded as well on the previous day, became sick; she lost her appetite; her pulse and respiration increased in frequency, and she exhibited other signs of fever. On the 13th, disease was discovered, by auscultation and percussion, to exist in the left side. In about a fortnight, this animal had begun to recover her appetite, and her pulse and respiration improved.

The other cows exhibited no signs of pleuro-pneumonia during the time of observation.

August 13.-The weather being very warm, the flies very troublesome, and the observations having now continued eighty days, the Maine cow, the Maine heifer, and the two

Waltham cows, were driven to Brighton, and there killed. The appearances after death were as follows:

The Maine heifer was found to have well-marked pleuropneumonia of the left chest-the disease was subsiding; the other chest healthy.

The Maine cow perfectly healthy.

One Waltham cow healthy, except a slight adhesion over fifth rib on left side, and the spaces between the two adjoining ribs which could be covered with the palm of the hand. This adhesion was old, of a date much anterior to the commencement of the experiments.

Second Waltham cow also healthy, except an adhesion similar in appearance, and equal in age and extent with that just described over the fifth rib on the right side. The lung had been mutilated by some one previous to my examination, but contained no evidence of recent disease. No part of the flesh of these cows was allowed to be eaten by any animal.

My own cow has continued perfectly healthy to this time. The remaining sick cow had apparently recovered, and on the 31st of October brought forth a healthy male calf, which has grown well, and remains well. Her milk is rich, and of a good flavor.

November 30. This cow was again stalled with my own cow, to commence a new experiment.

It will be seen that the experiments with this herd are not yet concluded. The above are the facts thus far.

Conclusion. It would be rash to draw general conclusions from an experiment so limited. The following are the

1. Only one animal of the five exposed became diseased during an observation of eighty days.

2. The disease did not prevent the mother from bringing forth a healthy calf, which has continued healthy six weeks; nor has it prevented her from giving good milk.

3. It is probable the heifer would also have recovered.

4. In an economical point of view it would have been unwise, so far as this herd was concerned, to kill all the animals as soon as exposed; whether we have regard to the value of the animals recovered, or the number which apparently became diseased in consequence of exposure.

These are the conclusions to which a believer in the contagious nature of the disease would assent.

A believer in epidemic or local influences as a cause of the disease would object that the experiments are not conducted at a sufficient distance [six miles] from the place where it is known to be rife; that pleuro-pneumonia is epidemic among pigs in the immediate vicinity; that epidemic pleuro-pneumonia among human beings has been known to extend over the whole of New England and New York. In fine, that the herds of Waltham are subject to similar influences as those in Cambridge, differing in degree.

These experiments have been undertaken not without considerable expense and trouble; they are offered as a contribution to our knowledge of a most important disease among cattle, with the hope that they may be continued until definite results shall be arrived at, not only as to its contagion or non-contagion, but also with regard to other points interesting in an economical point of view, and not less so as it bears upon the study of comparative pathology.

I have the honor to be,

Your Excellency's obedient servant,

CAMBRIDGE, December 23, 1863.

MORRILL WYMAN.

AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT, STATE HOUSE,
BOSTON, December 24th, 1863.

To His Excellency JOHN A. ANDREW :

DEAR SIR, The disease commonly called pleuro-pneumonia, still exists among the herds of some twelve or fifteen towns of this Commonwealth. The importance of an early consideration of the facts connected with its introduction and spread, can hardly be overstated, whether we regard it in a pecuniary or in a sanitary point of view. If we are to give up all effort to eradicate it, we must settle down. into the conviction that we shall soon find ourselves in the condition of those countries in Europe where this disease exists, and from which it is now, probably, too late to attempt to get rid of it, owing to the fabulous amount of the cost.

What is that condition? The most moderate estimates fix the loss by pleuro-pneumonia alone, in the British Isles, at ten millions of dollars a year. The value of cattle lost by that disease amounts to two or three times the value of all the cattle imported. More than a million head of horned cattle died of pleuro-pneumonia in the six years ending with 1860, of a value of at least sixty millions of dollars. Nor is there any falling off, but on the other hand a rapid increase, so that in 1862 the prevalance of the disease, owing to sales in the markets and at the fairs, was greater than it had ever been known before. In one week, about the time I was in London, more than nineteen tons of diseased meat were discovered in that market alone.

These are startling facts, but they do not represent the whole truth. They fall far short of it, for we must consider the contamination of the animal food and of the dairy products of the kingdom, and the almost universal demoralization among a very large class of farmers, dealers and butchers, affecting the whole community, consequent on the reckless traffic in diseased meat.

"Horned cattle," says a recent Report made to the Lords in council of Great Britain, "horned cattle affected with pleuro-pneumonia are much oftener than not, slaughtered on account of the disease, and when slaughtered are commonly, except their lungs, eaten; and this even though the lung disease has made such progress as to taint the carcass."

"At present there is a keen competition for a cow affected in the last stage of pleuro-pneumonia, and with an ever-increasing scarcity of animal food, it is of daily, or rather of hourly, occurrence, that diseased town dairy cows realize from five to twenty pounds sterling."

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'Live stock insurance companies were formed immediately after the importation of foreign diseases, and these companies found, what farmers had discovered, that it was better to kill for the butcher than to treat animals affected with disease, so that in many ways, the slaughter of diseased stock as human food has been sanctioned and encouraged."

Professor Gamgee, a man of high scientific attainments. as a veterinarian, and having the confidence of the British government as such, says:

"The traffic in diseased animals is impoverishing stockholders and the country at large. My calculations, made under the most favorable circumstances, show that the United Kingdom never loses less than eight millions sterling (forty millions of dollars,) by disease amongst cattle, sheep, and pigs. Half that loss is annually due to foreign contagious diseases."

"The meat-consuming public is paying fifty millions of dollars a year more now, for the same amount of meat, than it did in 1841, the year before the importation of the disease."

"One inspector (of markets,) said that if he was called upon to exclude from market animals affected with contagious diseases, he must exclude two thousand animals out of Islington market on many a Monday morning."

"It was altogether a mistake to believe that diseased meat is sold to the poor. There are many diseased cattle eaten, whose real state could only be told at the time of slaughter."