48 THE ITINERANT HORSE PHYSICIAN 



My friend, the State Veterinarian, still held 

 office, and for the first few weeks I spent the 

 greater part of my time with him, earning a few 

 dollars now and then, helping out in odd cases 

 and making a long distance call now and then. 

 At that time it was nothing unusual to receive a 

 call from points fifty to a hundred miles away. 

 Graduate veterinarians were few and far 

 between in Texas in those days and one who 

 established a practice and gained any kind of 

 good reputation could always get more of these 

 long distance calls than he could handle. For 

 these trips it was customary to make a charge of 

 twenty-five dollars per day with expenses. 



When a few weeks had gone by in this man- 

 ner I opened up an office in the down town 

 section on Franklin Street and hung out my own 

 sign. The State Veterinarian gave me all the 

 assistance he could in the beginning and I began 

 to do quite a bit of work. In this regard he, the 

 State Veterinarian, stands in a class of veteri- 

 nary practitioners which is not very large. He did 

 everything in his power to make it easy for me to 

 work up a practice, and that in his own territory, 

 within a few blocks of his own office. With very 

 few exceptions the other graduate veterinarians 

 with whom I have come in contact always 

 attempted in every possible manner to discourage 

 new beginners. In one instance phvsical violence 

 was threatened if I should have the courage to 

 compete with a certain practitioner. This was 

 not quite as bad as an instance, which I shall 

 relate later, in which two quacks brought com- 



