. 

 38 REPORT OF THE BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 



ones, because the latter are easily detected as a rule, while the former 

 do not show the symptoms for two or three months, and during this 

 time may scatter the contagion among many animals and herds. It 

 is equally important to prevent the shipment of diseased and exposed 

 animp.ls within a State, except upon lines of railroad and upon steam- 

 boats which form a portion of our great interstate commercial chan- 

 nels. 



It is worthy of remark that there has been no trouble in enforcing 

 the rules and regulations in country districts where the population 

 is made up of farmers. The native American farmer has always 

 assisted in stamping out the disease and has been scrupulously care- 

 ful to carry out to the letter any measures that he was called upon to 

 observe. The result is that country outbreaks are soon under con- 

 trol and quickly eradicated. Not so, however, with city outbreaks. 

 Here we come in contact with an entirely different element of our 

 population. The city cow owner, as a rule, is in debt to the dealer 

 from whom he buys his cow. He is poor, ignorant, often unable to 

 speak our language, unscrupulous as to the health of his animals or 

 the character of the milk he sells, and not infrequently appears to 

 consider it his duty to violate the regulations or the statutes rather 

 than to observe them. 



In farming districts, therefore, it matters little whether the laws 

 are perfect or imperfect, or whether there are or are not penalties for 

 their violation; it is seldom that they are appealed to, and the work 

 of eradication goes smoothly on until it is completed. In city dis- 

 tricts the conditions are exactly opposite. When the inspectors come 

 upon the premises they are met as enemies ; too often they are 

 threatened with violence ; diseased cattle are surreptitiously sold by 

 the owners, and taken into other herds by dealers whose sales are in- 

 creased by the misfortunes of their customers. With such people, 

 harsh measures are necessary or the work could never be completed. 



The laws* should cover all acts which would tend to spread the dis- 

 ease, and there should be penalties applicable to all violations. With- 

 out these the time and expense required for complete success must 

 be indefinitely increased. 



