CATTLE COMMISSIONERS REPORT. 3 



A summary of the whole number of cases reported to the Com- 

 missioners in 1887 will be found to number sixty-five, embracing 

 cities and towns distributed from the western boundarj' of our State 

 to Aroostook County. Of these, forty-eiglit herds of cattle were 

 inspected, and sixteen stables aad 'Mumbjr ca.nps." Thirteen 

 head of cattle were condemned and destroyed a!; aa expense of 

 $309.75; and eleven horses also condemned aiii destroyed at an 

 expense of $026.50, making a total of $936.25. 



When we come to consider the valuation of live stock in this 

 State is rising $16,500,000, and that but thirteen head valued at 

 but $309.75, have been affected with contagious disease, and that 

 among our rapidly' increasing stock of horses, but; four cases of 

 glanders, valued at $189.25, have been discovered, outside of one 

 lumber camp, where seven horses prove to have been all inoculated 

 from a ''single case," taken together with the fact that bat a single 

 notice remained iu the hands of any of the Commissioners oq the 

 first of January, is '"proof positive" that Maine is justly entitled to 

 a "clean bill of health" for her "flocks and herds,"' such as can be 

 claimed by no other State in the Union. 



The whole amount appropriated by the last Legislature to carry 

 on the work of the cattle commission, was $5,000, but $2,500 of 

 which would be available in 1887, and of this amount it was found 

 $1,100 had been charged up against the new commission, in settling 

 up the business of the previous year, so that but the $1,400 re- 

 mained to carry on the business of the year. The Commissioners, 

 in their endeavors to keep the expenses of carrying on this important 

 work, restricted to the amount appropriated, have found themselves 

 entirely unable to carry on some investigations that perhaps should 

 have received their attention, and we are decidedly of the opinion 

 that more money should be provided to properly carry on the work, 

 or that a more stringent limit should be placed upon the amount of 

 appraisal in cases of condemned animals. 



By reference to section 2, chapter 138 of the new law, it will be 

 found that in cases of animals condemned and destroyed by order 

 of the Commissioners "the owner or owners thereof can recover 

 three-fourths of their value, as determined upon the basis of health 

 before infection, and the full appraised value in cases of animals 

 exposed to either of such diseases but not themselves actually 

 diseased, out of any moneys appropriated by the Legislature for that 

 I urpose ; provided, however, that they shall not pay more than two 



