eradicate the disease entirely. This will greatly increase the profits of sheep husbandry and make it a more certain and stable business.

HOG CHOLERA.

The one disease of farm animals which has gone on unchecked, and which has baffled us in our efforts to develop a plan of campaign that would seem to promise success, is hog cholera. The average loss from this disease is probably not less than $50,000,000 a year. It ruins many farmers, and it makes the production of our pork cost more than it ought. But, nevertheless, we have an abundance of pork, and the losses from the disease are accepted as one of those inevitable. things which can not be escaped. The time is coming, however, when, with the increase of population and the limiting of the corn-producing area, it will be a great object to save the hogs which now die from this cause. Indeed, this $50,000,000 would be, even at the present, a most welcome addition to the farmers' income.

I have not time to say more relative to this subject than that we have never given up the hope of finding a means by which this disease may be successfully controlled. The scientific investigations have been continued and discoveries have recently been made which explain some of our past failures and offer some encouragement to expect better results in the future. This disease is one of the most difficult, from a scientific point of view, that has been investigated, and much time is required to establish facts concerning its nature, even when the method of research that should be used has been made clear.

BLACKLEG.

A disease of cattle prevails in many sections of the country which is known as blackleg, or symptomatic anthrax. In some districts it has destroyed from 10 to 20 per cent of the young cattle, and almost prevented the production of bovine animals. Some years ago the Department introduced a vaccine for this plague which has been so successful as to reduce the losses to about one-half of 1 per cent. More than 1,688,000 doses of this vaccine were distributed last year, and we have reason to believe that nearly all of this was used. There is here a very large saving which has been brought about by scientific investigation and by the intelligent application of proper methods of prevention.

There are a number of other contagious diseases of animals, such as glanders, anthrax, and rabies, which have considerable influence upon agriculture, but which I shall not discuss at this time. What I wish to impress upon you is that, as the number of animals in a country increases, as the transportation facilities improve, as the traffic in live stock becomes more brisk, the danger from communicable diseases increases and the necessity for official control becomes more urgent. H. Doc. 743, 58-2—12

To control such diseases in a great country like the United States is an undertaking of such magnitude that it must have the earnest and cordial support of the farmers to insure success.

There are a number of ways in which the communicable diseases of farm animals affect agriculture, and in order that these may be clearly placed before you I have recapitulated them as follows:

(1) By the direct loss of the affected animals.

(2) By loss of business on account of an outbreak of disease, as usually occurs when dairies are affected.

(3) By the expense of treating the animals and disinfecting the premises.

(4) By quarantines and other restrictions.

(5) By the reduction of value of individual and product in the case of animals which live.

(6) By the destruction of valuable breeding animals and by checking the improvement of breeds.

(7) By the loss of markets which are closed to countries in which certain diseases exist.

FACTS CONCERNING THE HISTORY, COMMERCE, AND

MANUFACTURE OF BUTTER.

By HARRY HAYWARD, M. S.,

Assistant Chief of Dairy Division, Bureau of Animal Industry.

THE USES OF BUTTER IN ANCIENT TIMES.

Butter is one of the oldest of all the articles of present diet. We learn from the Vedas, written 2000 to 1400 B. C., that the Hindoos were interested in cattle raising, that they valued their cows according to their yield of butter, and that they used butter as food. The quality of the article as then made is very uncertain. From the Greek derivation of the word, which means cow cheese, it may be inferred that it contained nearly as much casein as fat, and was, perhaps, hardly entitled to the name of butter, as the article is now known.

From “Kirne and Kerbe," Martiny's work, we gather that a number of foreign countries, which at the present time have little or no dairy interests, were among the first to make some use of butter. Among the peoples who used butter before the Christian era may be mentioned the Scythians, to whom it was known as early as 450 B. C., and the Greeks, who used it about the same time. A little later than this the Persians made butter, and Strabo states that about 60 years B. C. it was used by the Portuguese.

In early times butter was employed in many ways. The Hindoos used it for the greatest and holiest sacrifices in their worship. The Greeks and Romans did not use butter as a food, but as the standard remedy for injuries to the skin. The soot of burned butter was regarded as a specific for sore eyes. The Romans also used it as an ointment to enrich the skin and as a dressing for the hair. In the time of Alexander I certain of the Macedonians anointed themselves with milk oil; and Galen records that in many cold regions people used butter in the bath. Historians speak of butter used as a remedy for wounded elephants, and within a century butter was used in large quantities in Scotland and North England for smearing sheep, also as oil for lamps. Besides being applied externally, it was used internally for various troubles. In Spain as late as the seventeenth century butter was to be found in the medicine shops for external use only. In the middle of the previous century "A medicinal and economic treatment of butter" sets forth in detail the value and use

of butter as a remedy. In rural districts in Germany at the present time fresh, unsalted butter is much used as a cooling salve for burns. Aside from its use as food, a cosmetic, and medicine, the use or possession of butter was long regarded as indicating wealth, and so served to distinguish the rich from the common people. Evidences of this still exist. In both Chilas and Darel a practice exists of storing up butter in the ground. Butter so stored is left a number of years, and, to insure its not being disturbed, a tree may be planted over it. Under these conditions it turns deep red and is highly prized. The owner's wealth is computed by the quantity of butter he has stored up in this manner.

Butter was enjoyed as a food by comparatively few people in its early history; those who did so use it seldom ate it fresh. The general practice was to melt it before storing away, and instead of being a spread it was employed to enrich cooked foods. Others, even in comparatively recent times, used the rancid stored butter as an appetizer. In Dardistan peasants are said to highly value salted butter grease that has been kept a long time, and that which is over one hundred years of age is greatly prized.

Little is known of the part which butter played as an article of commerce in ancient times. However, an early historian states that in the first centuries butter was shipped from India to ports of the Red Sea. In the twelfth century Scandinavian butter was an article of over-sea commerce. The Germans sent ships to Bergen, in Norway, and exchanged their cargoes of wine for butter and dried fish. It is interesting to note that the Scandinavian king considered this practice injurious to his people, and in 1186 compelled the Germans to withdraw their trade. Toward the end of the thirteenth century, among the enumerated wares of commerce imported from thirty-four countries into Belgium, Norway was the only one which included butter. In the fourteenth century butter formed an article of export from Sweden. It may be fairly inferred that butter-making in north and middle Europe, if not indeed in all Europe, was introduced from Scandinavia. John Houghton, an Englishman, writing on dairying in 1695, speaks of the Irish as rotting their butter by burying it in bogs. His report was confirmed by the discovery, in 1817 and later, of butter thus buried, packed in firkins. This burying of butter in the peat bogs of Ireland may have been for the purpose of storing against a time of need, or to hide it from invaders, or to ripen it for the purpose of developing flavor in a manner similar to cheese ripening.

PRESENT STATUS OF THE BUTTER INDUSTRY.

The butter produced annually in the United States somewhat exceeds 1,500,000,000 pounds, and requires the milk from about 10,000,000 cows. These cows are kept on something like 4,000,000

farms, and furnish occupation, wholly or in part, for about 7,000,000 people, or nearly 10 per cent of the population. The total value of the annual output of butter is nearly $300,000,000, which is a little more than 5 per cent of all agricultural products of the United States. Considered as a crop, it is exceeded in valuation only by corn, wheat, hay and forage, and cotton.

Although butter is very generally used by all classes, it is an interesting fact that more than one-half of that produced in the United States is made in seven States and half the remainder in seven other States. The transportation in excellent condition of butter produced in large dairy centers to nonproducing States is made possible by a highly developed refrigerating-car system. By this it can be shipped, even during the hottest weather, without being subjected to high and detrimental temperatures.

The methods of conducting the butter industry have changed materially during the past twenty-five years. The greatest factor concerned in these changes was the introduction of the centrifugal cream separator, which did much in developing the creamery system. Other factors having a greater or less influence upon the development of the butter industry are those which have brought the principles of physics, chemistry, and bacteriology to bear upon its manufacture, thus taking the making of butter out of the realm of empirical arts and putting it upon a scientific basis. As a consequence, butter is not only made more economically but it is of finer quality, and the annual consumption per capita is consequently increasing. Before the dairy industry had attracted the attention of scientific investigators it was believed that it was impracticable to make good butter west of the Mississippi River. But owing to the general adoption of improved methods in what was at one time considered the far West, there is a large product of fine butter in the trans-Mississippi States. In one of these States (Kansas) is the largest creamery in the world, while Iowa leads all other States in total production. It may be said that the butter belt is now west of Indiana, while it was formerly east of Ohio. This change has been brought about partly by the increased demand upon the Eastern dairymen for milk, partly by cheap cattle food and cheap transportation rates from the West to the great Eastern markets, and partly by the settlement of the West by people from the dairy districts of continental Europe with whom butter making was an inherited art.

While the production of butter in the United States is about 1,500,000,000 pounds annually, 94 per cent or more is consumed at home, leaving but 6 per cent or less for export. The exported butter consists chiefly of the inferior grades, very little of the high quality going abroad