thirty feet wide at the bottom, seven feet high, and six feet wide at the top. The ponds are fed with spring water, which runs about one hundred rods in a little creek before entering the ponds. The ponds are so arranged that we can drain them. The bottom is muddy. Yours truly, GEORGE KARSTENS. NORTH PLATTE, Dec. 17, 1886. Mr. M. E. O'Brien, Superintendent Fisheries, South Bend: DEAR SIR-I should have answered your letter of request sooner, but have neglected it on account of business pressure. I have just finished my fifth lake; I call them lakes because I think it sounds better than ponds in connection with fish culture. This one will contain seven or eight acres, making about fifteen acres altogether. The carp is my favorite. Those I received from the commission in 1882 have grown rapidly. I have a few weighing fifteen pounds each. I will put into the breeding ponds next spring about 100 spawners. raised this season about 1,000 young carp. I did not put in many spawners this year. If I am not mistaken, you will hear from this quarter good news concerning fish. I I have hundreds of bass in one lake that came from the Elkhorn four years ago. We have had them for the table two years. They are splendid. I turn thousands of them into the North Platte river every year. They multiply very fast. I have land-locked salmon obtained from the state commission. They have hatched the past two years. I can see hundreds of the small ones, from one to three inches long, but cannot get sight of the old ones. I have hundreds of long, slim, speckled fish two or three inches long, but cannot name them. I will sometime send some to you to classify. I keep my carp by themselves until they are over one year old and then let them go in with the other fish. I intend to have the finest fisheries west of the Missouri river in Nebraska. The carp is an excellent table fish. I regret I did not go into raising the mirror carp a few years sooner. There is both pleasure and profit in it, and while I have not derived great profit thus far, I have taken great pleasure in it. Yours very respectfully, ISAAC LAMPLUGH. REPORT OF THE STATE VETERINARIAN AND LIVE STOCK SANITARY COMMISSION. DECEMBER 1, 1886. The commissioners assumed the duties of their office in June, 1885, and organized June 24th of the same year by electing Mr. Geo. W. Barnhart, of Lodge Pole, chairman. Active work was begun at once. The duties devolving upon the commission necessitated constant traveling, and the holding of eighteen regular and fifteen special meetings, all of which were held at Lincoln. My appointment as state veterinarian dates from July 8th, 1885, and it is with a feeling of pride and pleasure that I can state that, with the active co-operation of the Live Stock Sanitary Commission, the veterinary sanitary work in this state, although limited, has been a success. Over twelve hundred communications relating to contagious animal diseases, and quarantine governing the admission of cattle into this state, were received at and answered from this office to date. Being obliged to do all the clerical work of the office, in addition to the necessary and laborious work in the field, in all sorts of weather, the duties of the state veterinarian are fatiguing. Were it not for the fact that glanders and farcy in horses, and swine plague or hog cholera existed to a great extent in our state, the losses sustained from contagious animal diseases would have been very light. GLANDERS AND FARCY, This loathsome and dangerous disease might be said to have existed to almost an alarming extent among the equines of our state. This may be accounted for, to a large extent, because of the prevailing ignorance of the disease among the majority of the practicing, and in many cases unscrupulous, empirics, the traffic in cheap and diseased horses previously tolerated, and by reason of the state having been neglectful of its duty in the past. Glanders and farcy (Pferderotz) are only different forms of the same constitutional disease affecting horses. If a sound animal be inoculated with the matter of glanders or farey, it may produce either one or the other manifestation, or both. It is highly contagious and incurable. Man, and most animals, take the disease if accidentally or wilfully inoculated, and usually succumb to it. The latent (pulmonary) and chronic forms are the most dangerous, by reason of their obscurity. Both forms are prevalent in this state. They frequently terminate in acute glanders, which is usually ushered in with a slight fever, and the symptoms of the disease becoming more prominent. The principal symptoms by which glanders can usually be diagnosed are, enlargement of the sub-maxillary gland or glands, a sticky, gluelike, scanty, and continuous discharge, at times streaked with blood, from one or both nostrils, ulceration of a chancrous character on the mucous membrane lining the nose, tumefaction of the nasal cavities, and swelling of the lymphatic glands of the head and legs. External glanders or farcy manifests itself in the skin of the diseased animal. It is known among the laity as as "Button Farcy." The state authorities up to date caused 309 animals (horses and mules) to be destroyed on account of being diseased with glanders and farcy. Two hundred and eleven were killed by order of the commission, the others voluntarily by the owners. We are pleased to report that in several localities glanders has been thoroughly eradicated. To date, four hundred and twenty-six letters were received requesting the immediate examination of horses believed to have glanders. Owing to the numerous other duties devolving upon the commission and the state veterinarian, the extent of the territory to be covered, and no provision having been made by law to secure expert assistance, one hundred and sixty-six complaints remain unattended to, and in but few instances could reported outbreaks of disease be attended to at once. This state of affairs is to be deplored, and we would most earnestly recommend that the law be so amended as to enable the Live Stock Sanitary Commission, upon the recommendation of the state veterinarian, to employ and secure such expert assistance as may from time to time be required, the assistants to be known as deputy state veterinarians, and to be clothed with such powers as may be necessary for the performance of their duties. The deputies to execute only such orders as may be received from the Live Stock Sanitary Commission, or from the state veterinarian. The additional expense of such assistance would be trifling. In the appraisement of glandered horses, mules, and asses, we believe we have confined ourselves to the strict letter of the law. Part of section 9 reads thus: "Whenever the commission shall direct the killing of any domestic animal or animals, it shall be the duty of the commissioners to appraise the animals to be killed; and in fixing the value thereof, the commission shall be governed by the value of the animals at the date of appraisement; Provided, That no animal or animals shall be appraised except those affected with a contagious or infectious disease of a malignant character, or such as have been exposed thereto. A glandered animal is generally understood to be worthless, but in order to proceed legally a nominal appraisement of one dollar per head was made in almost every instance. We hardly consider such an appraisement as being just, because in many cases, especially so when the animal is afflicted with chronic glanders, the horse to be destroyed may be in such a condition as to be of service to the owner for some length of time, yet the interests of the public demand its immediate destruction. We believe it would be policy to appraise glandered horses at about two-thirds their sound value. This would prevent the secreting of the disease, and greatly facilitate the work of stamping it out, as well as assist many an honest and worthy farmer in regaining a loss which he oft-times innocently sustains at the hands of the authorities. European countries long ago adopted this policy, and recently several states in the union did like wise, with most satisfactory results. From evidence received we learn that three persons died with glanders in this state within the past twelve months. They were inoculated while handling horses afflicted with this disease. The horses were destroyed by the commissioners. SWINE PLAGUE. During the past ten months swine plague or hog cholera was not so prevalent as in the years of 1884 and 1885, but it still exists to such an extent as to render swine-breeding and cattle-feeding unprofitable. Owing to legal restrictions, and to the limited means at our disposal, it was impossible to do more than make sanitary recommendations to the owners of diseased herds. The state of Nebraska, with a live stock interest valued at eighty million dollars, a large percentage of which is invested in swine, will in the near future have to give more than ordinary attention to the subject of swine plague. This fatal disease of swine, at repeated intervals, has infected the herds of the old world, and during the past twenty or thirty years has spread to an alarming extent throughout the United States and Canada, causing financial ruin to thousands of farmers. To-day the disease can be found in every county in this state, and Nebraska, within the past few years, has suffered a loss of over five million dollars, the greater part of which could have been prevented by the adoption of sanitary measures. During a period of five months the Union Pacific railroad sustained a loss of over twenty-five thousand dollars on one of their branch lines, in decreased shipment of hogs, owing to the existence of this plague in our midst, and the B. & M. railroad a corresponding amount, if not greater. Swine plague, therefore, at the present time is one of the most important subjects that can be profitably discussed and considered by the coming legislature. It is not only the swine-breeder, cattle-feeder, farmer, and the railroads that are suffering, but every industry as well, causing an indirect loss so great that it cannot be estimated. The |