CATTLE PLAGUE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18580, 14 December 1934, Page 13

CATTLE PLAGUE

HERDS SACRIFICED COUNTRYSIDE LTT IT BY PYRES 33 OUTBREAKS THIS YEAR i BRIGG (Lines.), Oct. 31. Cattle, sheep and pigs to the estimated value of £IO,OOO have already been slaughtered in North Lincolnshire in an effort to check the spread of foot-and-mouth disease. Piles of their carcases are soaked With paraffin or petrol and then set on ftro. The disease is sweeping the district iu the most virulent form known to veterinary science. In a tour of the area to-day, writes the Daily Express correspondent, I saw at one farm, owned by Messrs, ilaby and Hardy, more than 200 sheep lying dead in a deep trench. Close by, in another trench, were twentysix milking'cows.

All had to bo slaughtered. The total of stoc.k*kilied was worth more than £1506.

As dusk fell the countryside was lit by blazing-. pyres. Every few miles I carno across the dreaded, red label—the isolation sigh of the Ministry of Agriculture—posted on- farm gates. Fields were crematoriums where slaughtered cattle had been burned to ashes.

Twenty-two Ministry of Agriculture inspectors are helping the farmers to light the outbreak. UPHILL FIGI-IT Captain Broom, who is in charge of operations fpr the Ministry, told nle the officials arc working day and night in pfiTCr to chock the disease.' It Is an uphill light. The officials have their headquarters at Lincoln, Market Rasen, and Grimsby. Private telephone lines have been laid doyn between all ‘these places and the Ministry in London. cattle markets at Lincoln, Grimsby, Gainsborough, Market Pasen, and Brigg are closed, except for the sale of animals for immediate «•' stock valued gt £IO,OOO has recently been slaughtered iu Eincplushirc to check the sprea‘(| °f foot-and-tnpqth disease, the couptry t7m boqh comparatively freo of outbreaks 1 this year; Sliucp the beginning of the. year thefe have. betak 83 outbreaks involving qight counties -and resulting in t|p pf 803 cattle, 1574 Cdiiipghsatidu paid by the Ministry has; totalled £22,5,60. For thp same period last year there were 87' outbreaks, involving 23 counties, pud hecesMtatihg the slaughter of 3357 cattle, 3084 shoop, 1358 pigs, and three goats. Compensation paid was'. £73,408. The qtily two counties affected by at the moment are Gloucestershire and Lincolnshire, where, in the Market Epson district the cattle market was closed yesterday although no further put|redkft wpi-p notified.