Slaughterhouse

James McInnes is going broke. The 45 hectares of sprawling pasture he owns in the southwestern English county of Devon lie fallow, its 70 head of cattle close to worthless. He can't find a buyer for the ancestral farm, which he is now desperate to sell. An outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease has turned the verdant countryside into a gruesome field of slaughter. The prevailing sound is the crack of pistol shots felling livestock. Farms appear barren save for the smoldering pyres on which hundreds of perfectly healthy animals were incinerated last week. So far McInnes' herd has avoided infection, which means...

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