Excerpt from Eleventh Annual Report of the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture: Together With Reports of Committees Appointed to Visit the County Societies; With an Appendix Containing an Abstract of the Finances of the County Societies, for 1863 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 eradi cate 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 prevalence 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. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.