CATTLE COMMrSSIO:N'ERS' EEPORT. 



To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Common- 

 wealth of Massachusetts. 



In accordance with legal provisions, the Cattle Commis- 

 sioners submit, their annual report. 



During the past year the domestic animals of the State 

 have been exempt from any prevailing contagious or 

 epidemic disease, and our duties have been confined to the 

 extermination of sporadic cases, and prevention of their public 

 contact. Success has crowned the labors of our people who 

 are eno-aged in the business of rearino; and carino- for all 

 classes of animals and their products, though the beef market 

 and that of beeves for fiittening has not been very remu- 

 nerative. Boards of health and private individuals have 

 with great frequency notified us of suspected cases of con- 

 tagious pleuro-pneumonia. These notices are from all parts 

 of the State ; but the greater number are from Worcester 

 and the counties east, indicating that pulmonary trouble of 

 some kind is more prevalent there, or that stock owners are 

 more alert in its detection. 



Most of the cases have been where but a single animal in 

 a herd was afiected ; a very few were where suspicion had 

 fallen upon a number in the same herd, and supposed cases 

 of death from this cause had been reported. It should 

 perhaps be said that a certain form of pulmonary trouble is 

 not uncommon among our neat stock ; but in its virulence, 

 rapidity of propagation and development, and in its results 

 on a single animal or a herd, it is unlike and less to be feared 

 than contagious pleuro-pneumonia. So far as the commis- 

 sioners know, there has been but one case of this disease 

 in the State since 1864 ; and, if we ever have it again, it will 

 not be — it cannot be — by spontaneous generation, but by 

 actual contact of our stock with animals infected with it, 



