544 Abstract Report of Af/ricultural Discussions. 



be iuclined to take shares in any insurance company that offered liim, 

 at a cost of ll.s. a year, comjiensation for any cattle that he might lose 

 under ordinary circumstances; and for this reason — that his own 

 returns of percentage loss of cattle showed that^ out of 160 head of 

 beasts his average loss at no time exceeded 60Z. a year ; and of late 

 years, though a great many of his beasts were young animals, yet, by 

 the exercise of care and attention, he had been enabled materially to 

 reduce that j)ercentage. He found that there were certain disorders 

 to which animals were subjected, and by dealing with these promptly, 

 his average loss was now diminished from ten beasts a year to five 

 only. 



He did not know how the existence of a system of general 

 insurance would act on his own mind ; but he feared that in such 

 case it was human nature to be exceedingly careless, and that men 

 would be deterred from applying their minds to the prevention and 

 cure of disease. 



So far as the rinderpest insurance was concerned, they had it now 

 distinctly under the Act of Parliament. It was a safe insurance. It 

 had operated well ; and he should be very sorry indeed to see any 

 scheme of voluntary insm*anco, which should set aside the vantage 

 ground on which they now stood, substituted for it. Perhaps he 

 might be allowed to make a remark uj^on one point to which Dr. Farr 

 had referred, and that was the distressing subject of a guarantee fund. 

 To him that would be most objectionable. Dr. Farr suggested that 

 the noblemen and gentlemen of the county should furnish a guarantee 

 fimd. But this he (Mr. Pell) thought would put them in an invidious 

 position. Such assumptions should not be mixed up with positive 

 facts deduced from mathematical reasoning. It was not fair to mix 

 up the two. Many gentlemen would resent with spirit a proposal 

 which might brand them as cm-mudgeons if they did not lend 

 their aid. Another effect of such a scheme would bo that from a 

 fear of public opinion others might come forward, and give beyond 

 what there was any just claim upon them for. In December last 

 a very large meeting was held at Northampton, and the idea of the 

 guarantee fimd was eagerly seized upon by the great body of j)ersons 

 in the room, and in the end they came to this : Let those who don't 

 choose to give go home and keep their money in their pockets. The 

 result was that a nobleman who was present said that if that was to be 

 the shape the thing was to assume he would have nothing more to do 

 with it. He thought, therefore, that the mixture of a guarantee fund, 

 with the raising of money on mathematical considerations, was a very 

 bad one. On the whole, he should be sorry to see the plan of Dr. Farr 

 adopted to the loss of the vantage ground they now occupied under 

 the action of the Government measm-es. 



Mr. FiNLAY Dun was surprised to hear Dr, Farr speak of rindeii^est 

 as if it were an epidemic disease ; he should be sorry if that remark 

 led any one to suppose that it might from time to time spring up 

 spontaneously. 



Dr. Farr said he had not intended to convey that idea. 



Mr. FiNLAY Dun. That the disease depended on contagion was the 



