250 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



mention seem to be fairly good evidence that wherever we have 

 worked we have made the disease much less. There are sec- 

 tions where there is practically no disease. There were throe 

 hundred cows tested around Bryant's Pond and only five found 

 diseased, and in nearly all of the northern towns where farmers 

 raise their cows, tuberculosis is almost an unknown disease, but 

 in the southern part of the State and along the railroads, in 

 the pure blood section and around the cities and trading centers 

 where cows are kept for milk supply, where they are kept closer 

 and fed higher, in those sections we have yet more work to do ; 

 and yet we notice a decided improvement along the line of bet- 

 ter ventilation and more exercise, and that the farmers are tak- 

 ing more interest and looking after their herds as far as health- 

 fulness is concerned. Many have an idea that the commissioners 

 believe that the tuberculin test is infallible. This is a wrong- 

 impression. We do not, yet it is the best thing to diagnose a 

 case and is used in all countries where tuberculosis exists. Out 

 of the three hundred and ten cattle destroyed at the Portland 

 investigation there were twelve that showed no sign of tuber- 

 culosis with the naked eye on the post mortem examination, yet 

 this could not be called a scientific post mortem. Possibly by 

 going farther with a microscope tuberculosis might have been 

 found in nearly all of these cases, yet we record it as four per 

 cent not showing any traces of tuberculosis. Then, upon the 

 other hand, there were five that did not respond to the test. 

 These cows were wrecks and condemned upon a physical exam- 

 ination, and were all found to be very bad cases. - And every 

 one who has his herd tested must expect occasionally to find 

 this condition of things, but the per cent is very small. 



Does the tuberculin test injure the animal? The opinion 

 exists among some farmers who have never had any experience 

 with tuberculosis, that the test injures all animals injected. This 

 is entirely wrong. It should be understood that tuberculin has 

 no effect except upon tuberculous animals ; for instance, if an 

 animal is injected with tuberculin and after twelve or fourteen 

 hours her temperature rises from three to five degrees, then the 

 animal is affected by the test, but if the temperature does not 

 rise, then it has no effect whatever and the animal stands as 

 sound and healthy in every respect as before injection. It is a 

 settled question by the best authority that the test does not injure 



