REPORT ON PLEURO-PNEUMONIA.

North Otago Times, Volume II, Issue 28, 1 September 1864, Page 3

REPORT ON PLEURO-PNEUMONIA.

Sheep Inspector's Department, Dunedin, Bth August, 1864. gj r> Tn accordance with instructions of tho 10th ult., I have the honour to report the result of my inquiry as to pleuro-pneumonia having spread through the Maniototo and Manuherikia districts, and whether it would be advisable to throw open that part of the Province. Leaving Dunedin on the 14th July, I commenced onthel7th to examine cattle the property of Mr N. B. M'Gregor,at his station Mount Stoker, Upper Taieri, and found several of them suffering very much frjm disease. Being anxious that thero should be no doubt on the bubjecf, I was determined to have one killed, but luckily falling in with a heifer that had died the day pievious,l opened it at once, and found the cause of death to have been pleuro-pneumonia. In searching further over the same run, I saw about two hundred head of stray cattle from the adjoining station, many of them badly diseased, belonging to Mr Edward M'Glashan. I was also informed that a bullock was in a dying state a

short distance above Messrs Purdie and Dick's, on the Taierißiver ; had the animal killed, found he was in the last stage of the disease, and could not possibly have lived many duys. While riding through the country in the possession of Messrs Thomson, Purdie and Dick, and Phillips and Seal, to see their cattle, I found a good number dead, but too far decomposed to be able to hmdle them. Examining their brands, six out of twelve belonged to Mr Edward M'Glashan ; albo, a large number of his cattle, with a few of them diseased, were mixed amongst the herds belonging' to the above-named runholders. I continued my inquiry from the Taieri Lake to the Dunstan, although unable to find out that any cattle had died fiom pleuio pneumonia. 1 don't think that there is a single herd in that part of the province safe, from the fact of so many cattle (numbers of which are diseased) wandering about the country. To stnw how they stray, I may mention that a few from the herd of M s&i-b Driver and M'Lenn, at the Deep-stream, found their way to Messrs Murison's, Maniototo, and 15 or 16 fiom Mr M'Glashau's diseased lot have joined Messrs Campbell and Low'-., at the Dunstan, a di tanco of eighty nulos. Mjjs M'Ula&han also informs mc that he sold, some eight or ten months ago, two hundred out of his herd to a settler at the \Vanaku. Consideung the rambling nature of imported cattle, which in cold weather nre continually on the move, and the gieat difficulty in keeping people fiom shifting their cattle from one part of the countiy to another, quite irrespective of all reductions, it seems absurd to shut up in a diseased district laige numbers of sound cattle that have ncu'i , beou otherwise, while hundiidb of infected arc allowed to ramble o\er the province without check. I would strongly recommend the Government to throw open the 'whole country ; let pounds be established in central positions m each district, wheie stragglers may bo impounded, so that their owneis might have an opportunity of getting them, and it would help to prevent disease from spieading so rapidly through the Pi ov nice. Fiom the slioit peiiod at my disposal, I was unable to devote the time necess-iry to make a Aoryclose examination, beliowng if I had done so I would have b.en able to report a much greater extent of disease through the country I passed. I hive the honour to be, Sir, your most obedient servant, Wμ. Logic, Chief Inspector of Sheep, To the Provincial Treasuier, Duuedin.