78 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



some instances had their herds tested. Some animals in the 

 herd have reacted. These have been removed, and the gap 

 thus made filled with untested cows from an outside source. 

 Some of the cows thus brought in may have been tuberculous. 

 The dairyman may have been compelled in these instances 

 to purchase cows to enable him to keep faith with those who 

 take the products of his dairy. Even so, why were these cows 

 not bought subject to test ? 



There is but one safe way to rid an infected herd of tuber- 

 culosis and to keep it clean. The herd must be tested by a 

 competent person. If tuberculous animals are found, they 

 must be removed, but not necessarily for purposes of im- 

 mediate slaughter. The herd should be again tested six 

 months later, and two tests should also be made the following 

 year, after which one test a year should be made until the 

 trouble disappears. To allow trading in cows brought in from 

 outside sources, in the absence of the tuberculin test, is simply 

 vicious. No man who breeds cattle can afford to ignore the 

 presence of tuberculosis in his herd. Just as surely as he 

 does, so surely will tuberculosis exact from him a severe 

 penalty. 



Contagious abortion in a breeding herd of dairy cows is 

 destructive of all profit and all progress. This most elusive 

 disease, like the pestilence, walks in darkness. It would not 

 be correct to say that when it invades a herd treatment is of 

 no avail ; but it is correct to say that treatment seldom suc- 

 ceeds in removing it short of two or three seasons. Happily, 

 it is a disease that cannot come to a herd unless it is in some 

 way brought ; hence the dairyman who breeds his own stock 

 and who is judicious in the selection of males need not fear 

 contagious abortion. 



To the writer it does seem unfortunate that so large a 

 proportion of those who are engaged in dairying do not breed 

 their own cattle. As long as the cows milked are drawn from 

 outside sources, just so long will it be practically impossible 

 to keep them entirely free from disease. The good old- 

 fashioned way of breeding on the farm the stock wanted there 

 has many things to commend it. Could this plan of providing 

 stock become almost universal again, there would not be much 

 use for live stock sanitary boards in the various States. 



