CATTr.E-HREEDIXG AND DAIRYING 145 



alternative to slaughtering-out is a system based 

 on quarantining, fencing, and dipping, and only 

 when the infection is universally spread over a 

 large area, which would involve too great an 

 outlay to fence, should the extreme measures of 

 wholesale slaughtering be resorted to. 



Natives who have had their cattle destroyed 

 are ruined as cattle-breeders for at least a 

 generation, or until they have had time to 

 forget the iniquities of the Government who 

 first sent their agents to infect their cattle by 

 cutting their ears and then to kill them for 

 catching the disease. Such is the interpreta- 

 tion ignorant and superstitious natives place 

 upon the procedure of the Government for 

 diagnosing diseases through blood smears. It 

 is impossible for them to understand what it all 

 means. Cattle are much more than money to 

 the native ; they represent his wealth in the 

 widest sense of the word. More than this they 

 are his tame dependents, each of whom he calls 

 by name. One day, for no reason at all that 

 he can understand, for they are all perfectly 

 healthy, an agent of the Government appears 

 and orders his cattle to be destroyed. A native 

 who has been treated in this w^ay will never 

 trust the Government again ; he will never rear 

 any more cattle, because for aught he knows the 



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