610 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Oft. Doc. 



tions from abroad through regulations prohibiting the importation 

 of live animals. Of course, this prohibition has at the same time, 

 been of service in helping to keep the breeds pure, but the chief 

 advantage of these regulations has come from preventing the en- 

 trance of animal plagues. The older breeds of the continent, as the 

 Simethal, Dutch, Brown Swiss and Normandy cattle, Merino sheep, 

 Ardenner and Pinzgauer horses have developed in more or less 

 sequestered localities where they have been to a large extent ex- 

 empt from prevalent plagues. 



Improvements in breeding come, then, from continuous effort; 

 and continuity of effort is an absolutely essential factor in breeding 

 advancement. In this country we have lacked more than auythinj. 

 else, continuity of effort. How frequently has it happened that a 

 man has gathered together at enormous cost the best purchasable 

 representatives of a breed. The stud, herd, or flock is thus estab- 

 lished if continued in competent hands for a number of years could 

 not fail to be of enormous advantage to that particular breed. Un- 

 fortunately, however, such enterprises are often — I think I might say 

 usually — short-lived. 



In looking for the causes that are responsible for the melting away 

 of these promising beginnings, I have found that disease is the 

 chiefest. Let me illustrate: About twenty years ago, a consider- 

 able number of large poultry farms were established in the eastern 

 part of Pennsylvania, in New Jersey, and other parts of the Eastern 

 states. Many of these establishments were carried on successfully 

 for a few years, and the outlook for continued success appeared to 

 be very promising. None of these establishments is now in exist- 

 ence. I do not know of a large commercial poultry plant that is as 

 much as ten years old. In nearly -every instance, the reason given 

 for the discontinuance of the business is that it became unprofit- 

 able on account of the prevalence of parasites and disease; the fowls 

 died. When one considers the magnitude of the poultry industry, 

 that the poultry yards of the United States produce more than the 

 wheat fields, the extent of the loss from disease of poultry will be 

 appreciated. 



Innumerable ventures in swine breeding and in swine feeding 

 have been ruined by disease. The keeping of hogs has been dis- 

 continued temporarily in many districts by reason of disease, very 

 much to the detriment of the farmers in those regions, for there is 

 nothing that can take the place in farm economy that is held by the 

 hog. It is quite out of the question to attempt to fatten hogs 

 purchased at a considerable distance and shipped on the railway. 

 To ship hogs in stock cars and through stockyards is almost certainly 

 to expose them to cholera, and can not be done, in a business way, 

 except in case of hogs that are at once to be slaughtered. This fact 

 is a severe check on the swine industry, although it is not always 

 recognized as such. It was an Iowa farmer who said: ''It is a good 

 thing that cholera takes away ten million to forty million dollars' 

 worth of hogs every year; if it did not, the price of hogs would be 

 much lower than it is." It would be as reasonable to desire to keep 

 up rents in a city by burning down a few hundred houses every 

 vear. 



The parasitic diseases of sheep constitute such an intolerable 



