greatest menace to the profitable raising and
feeding of cattle in the South, because they are an obstacle to cattle
traffic between the infected and noninfected districts.

_Loss occasioned by cattle ticks._--The economic aspect of the tick problem
is unquestionably of the greatest practical interest, since the fundamental
importance of all the other questions which surround it depends upon the
actual money value involved. A careful and conservative estimate made in
1916 placed the annual loss caused by the ticks in the United States at
$40,000,000, and indicated that the ticks also lowered the assets of the
South by an additional $33,000,000. The principal items in these losses are
set forth below.

It is well known that those animals coming from an infected district and
sold in the "southern pens" of northern stockyards bring about one-half a
cent less per pound than the quoted market price. The handicap that is
placed on the southern cattle raiser as a result of this decrease in value
of his stock will average at this figure $3 per head, allowing an
individual weight of 600 pounds for all classes of animals. This decreased
value reacts and fixes the valuation of all cattle which remain in the
infected territory, thereby reducing the assets of the cattle industry of
that section. In addition there is a very great loss from the decrease in
flesh and lack of development of southern cattle occasioned by the
parasitic life of the ticks from without and by the blood-destroying and
enervating properties of the protozoan parasites from within.

The presence of the tick among the cattle of the South not only lessens the
value of the cattle on the hoof but causes the gradings of hides that have
been infested with ticks as No. 4 quality. The same hide, if free from tick
marks, would grade No. 2. The difference in price between these two grades
of hides is 3 cents a pound. As the hide of a southern steer weighs about
42 pounds, the presence of the tick in the hide causes a loss in the hide
alone of more than $1.26 a hide. It has been shown that the cost of tick
eradication is only about 50 cents a head, so that if the counties make a
systematic campaign to eradicate the tick, the increase in value of the
hide alone would pay for the cost of tick eradication and leave the farmer
a net profit of about 76 cents a hide.

The shrinkage in the milk production of cattle harboring many ticks will
average 1 quart a day, which in the a