The " foot and mouth disease " appears almost as
formidable to stock farmers as the cattle plague. It does not, it is true, often kill, but it takes value out of the animals often greater than the whole difference between profit and loss. In a single column of the Times the disease is reported to be rapidly increas- ing in no less than seven counties—Dorsetshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Norfolk, Somersetshire, and Northumberland. In Norfolk, by the returns of Saturday, 13,000
animals were sick, and in Dorsetshire 16,904, an increase of 6,000 in one week, while in Warwickshire the disease has increased four- fold in one week. The local Quarter Sessions are unanimously in favour of stringent supervision, of the suspension of stock fairs, which spread the disease, and of the prohibition of the import of live beasts. It is believed that the disease originates in Ireland, but it is as infectious as scarlet fever, and once settled in any locality spreads in the most inexplicable way.
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