ected. Mr Collie, Ardgay, Morayshire,
had a byre of cattle slaughtered under the same circumstances, and with
the very same result. Pleuro-pneumonia is not so infectious as
foot-and-mouth disease, but if it get into a farm-steading it is most
difficult to get clear of. I have known cattle infected in three days.
I had bought a lot of cattle from a farm in Morayshire where the
disease has never been up to this hour. It was in the month of April.
There were two or three of the lot that I did not think profitable to
graze. I tied them in a byre where infected cattle had stood. They were
only to be kept a week or two, and I had no idea of danger. One of them
took the disease very badly in three days after he was tied up. I have
known it lie dormant in the system (as to any visible appearance) for
three months and a half. I found the general period of incubation from
five to six weeks. I have taken the greatest pains with the byres where
the infected cattle stood, having the wood-work taken out, the roofs
and greeps carefully scraped and washed with soap and warm water,
lime-water, and afterwards with chloride of lime; and yet, after all
this labour, I have seen the disease break out again and again. After
repeated outbreaks, I not only removed the wood-work, but the whole of
the stones in the stalls and greeps, and buried them. I had the roofs
and stone mangers, &c., carefully scraped, and washed with soap and
warm water, and afterwards with chloride of lime. They were then
closely painted, and lastly coal-tarred; but it was only after five or
six months' perseverance that I got clear of it. Having heard a report
that a cow belonging to my cousin, Mr M'Combie, editor of the 'Free
Press,' was labouring under pleuro-pneumonia, I went to see her. Mr
Sorely, veterinary surgeon, was in attendance. As there had been no
disease in the neighbourhood for five years, I was unwilling to credit
the report. But a more marked case I have never witnessed; and the
_post-mortem_ examination showed all the symptoms of the fell
disease. Mr Sorely, Mr M'Combie's overseer, and I, all agreed that as a
wood dividing-partition had been allowed to remain since the time of
the previous infection, and the cow was seen chewing pieces of the wood
that had got rotted at the base, the wood had retained the poison, and
the cow had been infected from the chewing of it. The breath is the
cause of the infection when cattle are housed together and the disease