38 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



returned for retail. Either the consumer or the producer must pay the 

 extra freight. In the northern part of the State this privilege would not 

 be so essential, but at certain times in each year there is a shortage of 

 fat cattle in many neighborhoods and for a plant of any dimension 

 to run successfully it must have access to fat cattle at all times. It is 

 with a view of supplying cattle in an emergency that the privilege of 

 shipping in southern cattle would be especially convenient to a slaughter- 

 ing plant in the northern section of the State. It is not probable that 

 southern cattle would be used to any extent if it were possible to secure 

 natives for slaughtering. It might be contended that the shipping of 

 a car of southern cattle now and then into any town in this State would 

 have a tendency to depreciate the value of the natives of that vicinity. 

 While at first glance this seems to be the case, it is not really true. At 

 any point in the State where southern cattle are liable to be handled, 

 dressed meat is freely shipped in. Thousands of southern cattle slaugh- 

 tered in the central packing plants are sent to such points and sold 

 in competition with the cattle produced at home. There is no way of 

 escaping such competition, and I cannot see that the privilege of hand- 

 ling a few southern cattle at any point in the State could be of any 

 especial detriment. The benefit growing out of the extra number of 

 markets thereby established would outweigh any objections that could 

 be urged against the central slaughtering plants having authority to 

 handle southern cattle. As things exist at the present time the country 

 slaughter house is rapidly going out of existence, and most of the 

 slaughtering is done at the central markets where the buyers are so 

 closely organized that they pay whatever prices they choose for live 

 stock. As to the safety of handling cattle from south of the fever line, 

 I will say that I should not advise it if I thought there was any danger 

 whatever. It is just as safe to handle southern cattle at the slaughtering 

 plants in the interior of the State as it is to handle them at the public 

 markets, and nothing further need be said along that line. 



RECOMMENDATIONS. 



(i) In view of what has been said in regard to the prevalence of 

 sheep scab in I^cledc county, the extra amount of tuberculin test work, 

 and the tick fever investigation in Southwest Missouri, I wish to recom- 

 mend to the Board, if suitable talent can be obtained, the employment of 

 one, and when necessary, two men to be engaged permanently by the 

 month in doing these lines of work. As has been said, either in tubercu- 

 lin test, sheep scab or tick fever work the man must not only have a good 

 scientific education but must have combined with it considerable busi- 

 ness ability. The work in all of these lines will keep one man busy, if h^ 



