40 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



other twenty-five per cent will have it very lightly, and 

 apparently recover. Another twenty-five per cent may es- 

 cape entirely. But our experience here and the experience 

 in England has shown that it is the most dangerous of all 

 contagious diseases, because the most insidious. 



But what I want to say is this, Congress can stamp it out 

 now. No State where it now exists will be likely to stamp 

 it out. You can hardly expect the States where it exists to 

 take the steps we took fifteen or twenty years ago. If they 

 would take them, they would get rid of it ; but they would 

 be obliged to spend a great deal of money, and it would 

 require a great deal of labor and a great deal of time. It 

 might be done ; but there is no probability that it will be. 

 If Congress would make an appropriation of one or two 

 millions, I believe, and the best veterinary surgeons of this 

 country believe and know, that it can be entirely and abso- 

 lutely stamped out. That would be the very best possible 

 investment that Congress could make, — to stamp out that 

 terrible disease throughout this country. 



Now, the practical point is just this. I hope the State 

 Legislature will memorialize Congress to make an appropria- 

 tion adequate to stamp out this disease. If England, when 

 the disease appeared on her shores, had taken the course which 

 we took ill 1859, 1860, and 1861, she would not have that 

 disease to-day. Now she is paying vast sums of money every 

 year in a vain struggle to keep it down. She cannot expect 

 to get rid of it now : it is probably fixed there for all time. 

 And let it go on in this country five or ten years more, and 

 do you suppose that a hundred millions would eradicate it? 

 It would be utterly impossible. If. we neglect it now, when 

 it can be extirpated, we shall have it fixed upon us just as 

 England has it to-day. 



Now, if the Legislature of Massachusetts would take that 

 course, if they would petition Congress to take measures to 

 extirpate this disease, they would be backed up by every 

 cattle-owner in the West. The time is coming when they 

 must wake up to the danger. If it is neglected, we shall be, 

 ten years hence, just where England is to-day, — so far as the 

 cattle-interest of this country is concerned. If we act now 

 with promptness, if Congress act, it would be sustained by 

 Massachusetts and by the West. One thing is now practica- 



