SECRETARY'S REPORT. 27 



tial service, and contribute to the public good by relieving them of 

 a heavy tax for which we conceive no benefit can be derived com- 

 mensurate with the expense." 



E. L. Hammoxd, a. Moore, S. Dill, Committee. 



After an animated discussion in which it was agreed by all that 

 it was very desirable to lessen the enormous expense now incurred 

 for fences, and that the subject needs careful and deliberate investi- 

 gation by all farmers, the report was adopted. 



Mr. Anderson, for the committee on veterinary science, (the fifth 

 topic,) submitted a report as follows : 



"Your committee, appointed to consider the need of veterinary 

 science in Maine, have carefully attended to the duty. 



We believe this to be one of the most pressing of our wants ; 

 one which is hurtful to the health of the man, as well as the beast, 

 inasmuch as he depends, for his daily food, upon animals which 

 may be in a more or less diseased condition, without the means to 

 prevent, or even to know that such is the fact. There exists, in 

 truth, so intimate a connection between the man and his beasts, 

 that if they suffer, in ever so little, from disease or accident not 

 only, but from bad manag-ement, discomfort or even the want of 

 unremittant, thoughtful care, which shall anticipate all dangers, 

 the owner must also suffer in coqimensurate degree. 



By its absence, we not only have constantly recurring losses and 

 frequent depreciation of the property which we possess in our live 

 stock, but, equally too, the annoyance of feeling that in each in- 

 stance we play the fool ourselves in parting with money spent upon 

 some pretending ignoramus whom we employ, because it must per- 

 force, be either him or none. 



As the barber-surgeon of olden time erected in the most conspicu- 

 ous place his banded pole, and, in the absence of more skillful 

 ability, attracted those who required either shaving or the letting 

 of blood, so now the farrier, as he is called — the quack as he is — 

 thrusts his impudent promises before our eyes in public prints, and 

 from this complete absence of thorough veterinary science and 

 practical skill, di'aws us into the support of ignorant assumption, 

 and very often, knavish empiricism. 



With filthy lotions, useless liniments, offensive applications, and 

 revolting medicines, (among the most common of which are fresh 

 animal excrements and a decoction of domestic guano,) the country 

 'cow-doctor' essays to mend constitutions and soothe stomachs 

 more delicate and more sensitive than those of man, because never 



