REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 249 



exposed by the department in its work to enable it to carry out the 

 purpose of its organization, namely, to diffuse among the people of 

 the United States useful information on subjects coiinected with 

 agriculture in the most general and comprehensive sense of that word. 

 All these statutes directly bear upon agricultural industries of the 

 people of the United States, and logically their administration has 

 been committed to the Department of Agriculture. 



SUPPRESSION OF CONTAGIOUS DISEASES OF LIVE STOCK. 



The act of May 29, 1884, established a Bureau of Animal Industry 

 in the department, largeiy for the purpose of advising with State 

 and Territorial officials in regard to the suppression of contagious 

 diseases of live stock. Practically no authority was granted by this 

 act to the Commissioner of Agriculture to regulate interstate com- 

 merce in diseased live stock. Sections 6 and 7 of the act prohibited 

 under penalty the shipment and transportation of live stock actually 

 diseased, the penalty, however, to be imposed only in case the animals 

 were known to be diseased at the time they were shipped or trans- 

 ported. 



This act did not meet the exigencies of the live-stock industry in 

 the United Stat&s, and the department, having found through its 

 investigations that, despite the law, diseases of live stock continued 

 to spread over large areas of the countrj^, recommended to Congress 

 additional legislation to empower the Secretary of Agriculture more 

 effectually to suppress the spread of contagious and infectious 

 diseases of live stock. The recommendations culminated in the pas- 

 sage of the act of February 2, 1903, which authorized the Secretary 

 of Agriculture to establish rules and regulations for the exportation 

 and transportation of live stock between States of the United Stater, 

 and foreiirn countries Avhere he had reason to believe live-stock 

 diseases existed. This act also empowered him to seize, quarantine, 

 and dispose of any hay, straw, forage, or similar material, or any 

 meats, hides, or other animal products coming from an infected for- 

 eign country to the United States, or from one State of the Union to 

 another, whenever in his judgment such action was advisable in order 

 to guard against the introduction or spread of live-stock contagion. 

 Suitable penalties were enacted for violation of the statute or disre- 

 gard of the regulations promulgated thereunder by the Secretary of 

 Agriculture. 



The statute accomplished in a measure the general results for 

 which it was enacted, but did not entirely cover the necessities of 

 the case, and, as the act was also held by the United States District 

 Court for the District of Nebraska to be unconstitutional, so far as 

 it empowered the Secretary to make rules and regulations violations 



