324 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



tion of the dealer's stable. Another one may be taken in exchange 

 with the same result, and with ignorance, indifference, and rascality, 

 the difficulty of eradicating the plague is almost unsurmountable. 

 A bill is now pending in the United States Senate, having 

 passed the House of Representatives, appropriating fifty thousand 

 -dollars to the treasury department for the purpose of investigating 

 the extent of the disease in this country, and the means for its 

 suppression. This will make a good beginning, but it is estimated 

 that a sum of two millions will be required to effectually stamp 

 out the disease from the infected district, which now extends from 

 the vicinity of New York city as far South as Maryland, a sum 

 that is annually now lost to the country, in the restrictions put 

 upon the cattle trade with that country by Great Britain, as com- 

 pared with the free trade of Canada, solely based upon the exist- 

 ence of contagious pleuro-pneumonia in the United States. 



A new feature of danger has also recently developed, from the 

 increased dairy business of the West. In addition to the ship- 

 ment of choice blood stock to the West — a class that is always 

 scrupulously guarded from infection, but as past experience has 

 shown, not always efficiently — a new trade has sprung up in calves 

 and yearlings. Large numbers have been shipped from Ohio, 

 western New York, and Vermont, and though not acknowledged, 

 from the infected district of the seaboard. 



The small profit to a few individuals in this trade, compared 

 with the great risks, is so insignificant that it should not be tolerated 

 at all. The action of Congress should be prompt and decisive. 

 Within the estimated cost of two millions now, it may soon be five, 

 or even beyond control. While Connecticut should retain the pres- 

 ent efficient law for self-protection, the power of the National 

 government is needed to stamp it out where it now exists, and to 

 prevent it from spreading through the cattle States of the West. 

 And it is but fair that the National treasury should also furnish the 

 means to accomplish the work. All the states have a common inter- 

 est in the matter, and some of them a much greater interest than 

 those States in which the disease now exists. 



As contagious pleuro-pneunomia exists in some of the European 

 states, the treasury department of the United States very properly 

 exercises its authority in quarantining for ninety days all imported 

 neat stock. To faciUtate this object quarantine grounds are estab- 

 lished near Boston, New York, and Baltimore. These yards are 



