210 ANNUAL. REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



TRANSPORTATION OF LI\'E STOCK. 



Additional legislation by Congress is needed to enable the Depart- 

 ment to regulate more effectively the interstate transportation of live 

 stock po as to prevent the spread of contagious diseases and provide 

 more humane conditions. 



Experience in the enforcement of what is known as the twenty-eight- 

 hour law has shown the desirability of exempting from its operation 

 live stock which is being shipped under quarantine restrictions. 

 Owing to unforeseen delays it is sometimes necessary in order to com- 

 ply with the law to unload stock which is being shipped under quar- 

 antine restrictions into pens which are not specially set apart for 

 that class of stock and which are likely to be used soon afterwards 

 for other stock, and in this way infection has sometimes been spread. 

 This danger could be practically obviated if the Secretary of Agri- 

 culture were clothed Avith power in such cases of emergency to waive 

 the provisions of the law so that animals under quarantine mi^ht 

 be kept in the cars for a sufficient time to reach a point where facili- 

 ties were available for handling them without danger to other stock. 



Although existing law authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture to 

 require the disinfection of live-stock cars moving into or out of a sec- 

 tion that is quarantined, it is desirable to have this authority extended 

 so as to empower the Secretary of Agriculture to require the disin- 

 fection of any live-stock cars used in interstate commerce whenever 

 he may consider such disinfection necessary in order to prevent the 

 spread of disease. 



In the shipment of live stock it is sometimes a practice to put into 

 the same car animals of various sizes and different species, with the 

 result that small animals are often injured or trampled to death by 

 larger ones. In order to remedy this evil it is desirable that the 

 Secretary of Agriculture should have authority to regulate the ship- 

 ment of different classes of stock in the same cars. 



Dead animals are sometimes shipped in the same cars with live 

 ones, and there is danger of the spread of disease in this way. Such 

 shipments should be prohibited b}^ law. 



INTERSTATE SHIP3IENT OF DAIRY PRODUCTS. 



In my previous reports attention has been called to the need for 

 inspecting dairy products and supervising their shipment. Cream is 

 shipped great distances to creameries to be made into butter, and it is 

 often received in such a filthy and putrid state as to be utterly unfit 

 to enter into the composition of a food product. Even though Con- 

 gress may not be ready to establish a comprehensive system of inspec- 

 tion for dairy products, much good could be accomplished by a law 

 regulating the interstate shipment of cream and other dairy joroducts 

 so as to prevent interstate traffic in unwholesome products. 



RENOVATED BUTTER. 



At present the Bureau of Animal Industry supervises the manu- 

 facture of what is known as renovated or process butter and maintains 

 inspection at the factories where it is prepared. This law has been 

 found inadequate in some respects, and I consider it desirable to have 



