Live Stock Breeders' Association. 245 



as surra, are prevalent, no cattle should be sent, except with an 

 understanding with the buyer that the cattle, although healthy when 

 exported, are at the buyer's risk after landing. No horseman, for 

 example, should be so foolish as to guarantee that his horses will 

 live in South Africa — a country where diseases peculiar to the horse 

 race are especially common and virulent. The ability of animals 

 to "stand the climate" is more frequently a matter of resistance 

 to diseases, and we should not expose our stock to fatal contagion 

 at the risk of ruining what may be a very profitable export trade. 



FRAUDS IN PEDIGREES. 



Complaints have not seldom reached the Bureau of Animal 

 Industry that some unscrupulous speculators has foisted inferior 

 animals on foreign buyers, especially in Mexico. It is stated that 

 grade dairy cattle have been taken to that country and sold as 

 pure-bred, registry certificates being furnished which were manu- 

 factured and printed by the dealer, who was not in any way con- 

 nected with a reputable pedigree record association certified by the 

 Secretary of Agriculture. This can be easily remedied by prohibit- 

 ing the export of animals for breeding purposes, unless they are 

 accompanied with certificates of the secretary of an association 

 which has the certification of the Secretary of Agriculture, and 

 these certificates in turn certified as genuine by an official of the 

 United States Government, preferably the Secretary of Agricul- 

 ture. Foreign buyers would soon learn that a certificate to be 

 genuine should bear the stamp of approval of the Agricultural De- 

 partment, and that the purchase of an animal not accompanied by 

 such a certificate would be at the buyer's risk. A departure of this 

 kind would not be without precedent. All animals shipped abroad 

 are already first subject to a sanitary inspection, and all meat and 

 meat products exported are first thoroughly inspected, the certifi- 

 cate of the Secretary of Agriculture that the animals or animal 

 products are healthy and wholesome for human food accompanying 

 the shipment. If the Secretary of Agriculture is empowered to 

 certify to the health and wholesomeness of such exports, it would 

 not be a radical departure at all to empower him to certify to the 

 pure breeding of animals sent abroad for breeding purposes. 



