8 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



commissioners. The result of leaving the matter to the local 

 authorities of towns has been disastrous. This is owing, in 

 great part, to the circumscribed action of such local authorities. 

 They cannot reach the source of the disease. By the statute, 

 the Commissioners have full power to visit any locality in the 

 State, and require any persons to testify under oath as to their 

 knowledge of the existence of pleuro-pneumonia in their 

 vicinity ; hence the fear of detection and punishment deters 

 many from sending cattle that have been exposed to the public 

 markets to be sold ; but as selectmen can only act within their 

 own municipalities, such cattle can be sent beyond the town 

 limits and sold without restraint. 



If no board of commissioners be appointed, and no active 

 measures are to be taken by the State to prevent the spread of 

 the disease, then it would be important that all laws relating to 

 payments for infected cattle slaughtered should be repealed. 

 Otherwise an unprincipled owner may sell a cow, infected with 

 the disease, into a herd of sixty or more, and the owner of the 

 latter may, when his cattle are taken sick, call in the authori- 

 ties, and the town and State will be obliged to pay large sums 

 of money, without thereby effecting any thing towards the 

 arrest of the disease. 



The importance, as a sanative measure, of checking the 

 spread of a contagious malady like this, has never been con- 

 sidered here as it should be. In England, where the trouble 

 has become wide-spread, through inattention and neglect, active 

 measures are now being taken to counteract the evil. There, 

 strenuous efforts are made to prevent the sale of diseased meat, 

 a business of great extent in that country, and which has just 

 commenced in this. The effect of selUng the meat and milk, 

 in that country, of diseased cows, is now known and felt, and 

 even perceptible in its vital statistics. It will be so here, unless 

 prompt and efficient action is taken to prevent it. 



Respectfully submitted. 



James Ritchie, 

 E. F. Thayer, 

 Henry L. Sabin, 

 Late Commissioners on Contagious Diseases of Cattle. 



Boston, December 9, 18G3. 



