190 CONTAGIOUS DISEASES OF DOMESTICATED ANIMALS. 



persons agree tliat the most satisfactory results will be attaiued wlieu 

 "we shall once more be able to show a clean bill of health, and send our 

 live cattle, under such regulations as will insure their health and com- 

 fort, to the farms and pastures of England and Scotland, there to be 

 slaughtered when their condition and the state of the market requires it. 



It ought not to be considered strange that British farmers should 

 make strenuous efforts to still further restrict or totally suppress the 

 importation of live stock for slaughter in their couutry. They have 

 suffered enormous losses in times past from imported disease, and dur- 

 ing the last few years they have been contending with great obstacles, 

 not the least of which has been the great supply of agricultural prod- 

 ucts that America has sent to that country. Under these circumstances 

 it is not to be expected that British farmers will be inclined to take a 

 strictly judicial view of the case. Ilfaturally they would like to secure 

 a better market for their own stock, and equally naturally they magnify 

 possible danger of importing disease from this country. On the Other 

 hand, it should be borne in miud that the Euglish Government has 

 steadily refused to yield to the demands for further restrictions, and has 

 In the main done full justice to American interests, especially in the 

 recent alarm over the reported existence of foot-and-mouth disease in 

 this country. 



It is doubtless true that British farmers do not regard the existing 

 condition of the meat trade with this country favorably, and that when- 

 ever they are satisfied that it may be done with safety they would 

 much prefer that the restriction should be removed altogether, rather 

 than that the iH-esent arrangement of compulsory slaughter be con- 

 tinued. As the trade is now conducted the su^iply received from the 

 United States detracts just so much from the demand for home prod- 

 ucts, and the British farmer has no opportunity for even an incidental 

 share iu the i)rofits of the business. On the other hand, could our cat- 

 tle be safely admitted without restrictions, immense numbers of store 

 or partially fatted cattle would be shipped to that couutry, and would 

 be taken inland to British pastures and finished up on British food, 

 thus enabling British farmers to reap profits out of the better fitting of 

 these cattle for the market, and also to utilize them in the converting 

 of the provender of the farm into manure, a very important considera- 

 tion with the farmers of that country. During my visit to that couu- 

 try I conversed with many farmers upon this subject, and I never met 

 with a single man who expressed himself as otherwise than favorably 

 disposed towards the free admission of American cattle whenever it 

 could be done with a reasonable guarantee of safety from contagious 

 diseases ; and in nearly every case the hope was expressed that the 

 time would soon come when the present restrictions jnight safely be re- 

 moved. Instead of being opposed from motives of self-interest to the 

 free introduction of our cattle to that country, the feeling seems to be 

 general among English farmers, so far as I heard any expression of 



