DAIRY MEETING. I4I 



course in the buying and selling of milk it is essential that the 

 grade cattle also shall be healthy animals, but in the transfer 

 from one neighbor to another it is not so important to have 

 them tested as it is to keep outside animals, which are largely 

 diseased compared to ours, from coming into the State and 

 spreading the disease broadcast among us. I have been upon 

 the Cattle Commission for twenty odd years, and it was a long 

 time before we could settle where this disease seemed to origi- 

 nate, how it got into certain herds. We finally decided that it 

 came from pure blood animals. One man had a large Jersey 

 herd which was tuberculous and in selling the calves to be the 

 head of other herds he had spread the disease. So I say while 

 the time is ripe to have the tuberculin test applied, it is not so 

 essential in the transfer of grades as it is in the transfer of pure 

 blood herds. 



Regarding the appropriation, it does seem as though we 

 should have a little more work done by the Cattle Commission 

 throughout the State. The Cattle Commission are ready to do 

 anything the legislature will allow them to do, and if we could 

 have some law passed and an appropriation to back it up, so 

 that we could test the cattle of any man who asked for it, at 

 the State's expense, I think it would go a long way in eradi- 

 cating the disease from the State. 



Mr. Deering has given statistics in regard to the disease. Let 

 me add right here that the cattle that have been tested are largely 

 the ones that have been more or less suspected ; therefore it is 

 a wonder that the number diseased is not ten per cent, that it is 

 down to three per cent. Some cow has calved and dried up 

 in her milk or is not eating well ; she is suspected of being dis- 

 eased, and the cattle commissioners are notified. That is the 

 class of cattle that has been tested, not those that everybody 

 believed were all right. If the whole number of cattle were 

 tested I do not believe you would find more than one per cent 

 diseased. I learn through the congress we had in Washington 

 that the State of Maine is the cleanest state regarding the health 

 of their cattle of any state in the Union, and the laws we are 

 working under were acknowledged to be the best of any. The 

 State of Maine is far ahead of any other state, and the United 

 States is far ahead of any other country except Holland. 



