248 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



among our herds, it might have been quickly controlled, and 

 hundreds of thousands of dollars saved to the State. The 

 peculiar efficiency of our statutes consists in the complete con- 

 trol they give the officers of the law over all the cattle of the 

 State, to prevent their being driven from place to place, to 

 isolate them when suspected of contagious disease, to direct all 

 municipal officers, and to punish all persons who shall neglect 

 or refuse to comply with the regulations of the proper author- 

 ities. The laws referred to apply only to " contagious diseases 

 among cattle." Their existence costs nothing when our herds 

 are not exposed to danger, but they enable us to act with great 

 efficiency and promptness whenever an emergency arises. 



Almost simultaneously with the appearance of this disease in 

 our State it broke out in Rhode Island, Connecticut and New 

 York. The cattle commissioners of the former States were in 

 constant communication with this Board so long as it was rife, 

 and cooperated in the general measures for its suppression. 

 By invitation of the board of New York, all the commissioners 

 of the New England States met them in convention at Albany 

 on the 8th of last February, " to concert measures for the 

 eradication of the disease from the country." Much informa- 

 tion was then obtained in relation to its introduction and dis- 

 semination in our respective States, but it was found that 

 though New York, in consequence of its great distributing 

 markets, was the most important point to attack the disease in 

 the interest of the whole country ; yet that State was entirely 

 "without laws for the suppression of contagious diseases among 

 cattle, and its commissioners powerless to enforce any regula- 

 tions for that purpose. In consequence of this, little was 

 accomplished by the convention but to petition the legislature 

 of that State to remedy the defect and ask the National Gov- 

 ernment to interdict cattle affected with this disease being 

 brought into the country. 



The legislature of New York failed to enact any statutes to 

 meet the emergency, and the final extinction of the malady and 

 the prevention of a new outbreak by disinfection, even in that 

 State, is largely due to the measures of the commissioners of 

 Massachusetts and Rhode Island, enforced by the very effective 

 and stringent laws of these States. 



