900 New Yokk State Dairymen's Association 



cates diseasfc as are the products of any other state. Yet the fact 

 remains that tuberculosis exists in our dairy herds to a greater or 

 less e'xtent. And there is a general feeling all over rlic state, 1 

 think, that the present law, framed for tlu' ])urpose of eliminating 

 this disease from our herds, has not resulted in making as rapid 

 progress as its framers hoped at the time it was enacted. During 

 the year that has just passed the state has officially tested with 

 tuberculin in round numbers 3U,0U0 dairy cows. When you take 

 into consideration that we have in the state more than a million 

 and a half dairy animals and that the state has onlv been able 

 to test that number, or 2 per cent., in a single year, you will ap- 

 preciate that the progress is necessarily slow and that the number 

 of herds from which this disease is eliminated necessarily small 

 and scattered and that when surrounded by other herds that are 

 not tested, the danger of its being brought back into these herds 

 that are tested and from which it is eliminated, is exceedingly 

 great. Thoughtful men have been thinking of this subject 

 recently perhaps more intently than during the immediate years 

 of the past ; and it has been suggested that the time has come 

 when we ought perhaps to take some more advanced step in this 

 direction. 



I am speaking of these matters here to you to-night for the 

 reason that this body of men are perhaps more vitally concerned 

 in these questions than any other single class of our citizenship, 

 and that no law can ever be wholly successful in eradicating tuber- 

 culosis from our dairy herds unless it is so framed that it receives 

 the cooperation and support of the great body of dairymen of 

 the state. 



And so it has been suggested whether or not the present law 

 sho\d(l not be amended, leaving as it now exists the tuberculin test 

 iininipaired, but providing for a physical test of all the dairy 

 animals in the state whose milk is sold in licjuid form. Scientific 

 men who Ikinc studied this question tell us that upon a physical 

 examination a hirge percentage — some of them stating, I think, 

 as liigh as 1)0 per cent. — of the actual spreaders of this disease 

 in the dairy herds of the state can be detected and elmiiuited. And 

 it seems to me that you men, assembled here in your annual gath- 

 ering, could well take up and discuss these questions j and the ex- 



