Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884.: A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and FiresideVarious
History
Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884.: A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside
Various
Agriculture -- United States -- Periodicals; Farm life -- Periodicals; United States -- Rural conditions -- Periodicals
2. That losses annually on exportation of cattle and beef,
consequent upon restrictive regulations and the decreased
relative consumption of our beef, aggregates many millions of
dollars. We reach an approximate estimate by these facts
relative to our foreign trade as follows:
The exports of 1880-81 were 368,463 animals. Those of 1882-83
were 212,554--a loss of 155,009 animals, and in value a loss
of $11,506,000 in two years.
The exports of fresh beef for two years were less by
40,071,167 pounds, and by a value of $2,191,190. The value of
pork products decreased in the same time to the extent of
$35,679,093.
This shows a falling off of about $25,000,000 per annum for
two years, as compared with the receipts for the two
preceding years.
CONTAGION TO BE AVERTED.
It should be known that the pleuro-pneumonia often mentioned
as a scare or a myth by the thoughtless and optimist is a
stern reality. Its journeys and track of destruction among
cattle have been as marked as that of small pox and
cholera--contagious diseases which have so tearfully
decimated the human family. Lung diseases of the modern type
were known before the Christian era, and were considered by
Columella and other Latin writers. Australia resigned her
great herds to flocks of sheep, as did South Africa, never
yet recovered from the blow to her cattle industries.
England has been tardy in the publication of her losses by
lung-fever, yet it is a fact which forbids secrecy that
calamity has reached the enterprising breeders, and colossal
fortunes have been swept away by the cattle-plague. In our
own country it has been no more the policy of secretive
owners to publish facts than that of city authorities to
proclaim the prevalence of small-pox in the town. Still,
startling facts have sprung from original sources of inquiry.
A town meeting is called in the State of Connecticut,
terror-stricken owners in New Jersey, Maryland, and
Pennsylvania meet for council. Massachusetts had a Governor
twenty years ago bold in telling truth, which led to
searching investigations by experts and officers of the
State. With autocratic power they made a diagnosis of
diseases, which led to the stamping out of the infection by
law, and a truthful proclamation that the plague was stayed.
The sacrifice of 1,000 brutes at a cost to the Commonwealth
of about $70,000 was a trivial sum compared to the perils
that beset a State valuation of $7,000,000, for bovines, and
the cattle of the Nation, numbering 40,000,000, and worth
nearly $1,100,000,000.
The monarchies of the Old World have set us an example; even
Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have pioneered for the world by
sagacious acts and the stern enforcement of law in
prevention.
AN AMERICAN POLICY
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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