420 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



them act in unison with the Board and doing away with 

 much of the delay that sometimes occurred in the manage- 

 ment of cases of contaofious diseases among the live stock of 

 the State. The modifications made in the law it was hoped 

 would also result in making it possible to carry forward the 

 work of extirpating the communicable animal diseases at a 

 much less expense to the State than heretofore, at the same 

 time providing for ample protection to the public health. 



The clause in the law under which the change was miade is 

 section 1 of chapter 408, Acts of 1899 : — 



The governor, with the advice and consent of the council, shall 

 appoint a board of cattle commissioners of not more than three 

 members, whose terms of office shall begin on the first day of 

 June, in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, and who shall 

 hold office as follows : one of said members for the term of three 

 years, one for the term of two years, and one for the term of one 

 year, and thereafter one of said members shall be appointed an- 

 nually for the term of three years. 



His Excellency Roger Wolcott under this provision of the 

 law appointed Austin Peters of Boston for three years, 

 Leander F. Herrick of Worcester for two years and Charles 

 A. Dennen of Pepperell for one year. The appointees quali- 

 fied June 8, and a meeting was immediately held, whereupon 

 the Board organized by electing Austin Peters chairman and 

 Leander F. Herrick secretary. 



The aim of the law is, as it has been in the past, to check 

 and diminish the ravao;es of diseases among- domestic ani- 

 mals that cause annually large pecuniary losses to their 

 owners, and at the same time to protect the people from 

 those that are in any way a danger to the health and lives 

 of human beings. The diseases of animals that are enumer-' 

 ated under the law as contagious are given in section 35, as 

 follows : — 



Contagious diseases under the provisions of this act shall in- 

 clude glanders, farcy, contagious pleuro-pneumonia, tuberculosis, 

 Texas fever, foot-and-mouth disease, rinder-pest, liog cholera, 

 rabies, anthrax or anthracoid diseases, sheep scab and actinomy- 

 cosis. 



