496 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



cient appropriation. An additional reason for stopping at this 

 point was that the town of Dennis, the next in order after leav- 

 ing Brewster and Harwich, extends entirely across the Cape, 

 thus in itself forming a natural line, in which a good quaran- 

 tine against incoming cattle might be maintained at a compara- 

 tively small expense. 



Up to the time of the passage of the law of 1895 the com- 

 mission had maintained a quarantine against the introduction of 

 all untested cattle throughout the counties where it was doing 

 systematic work. Any person desiring to bring cattle into 

 these counties was only permitted to do so after such animals 

 had been subjected to the tuberculin test. This regulation was 

 necessarily based upon the power in the commission to compel 

 the owner to subject such animals to the tuberculin test. With 

 the passage of the law of 1895 the Board was deprived of this 

 power, and consequently any quarantine maintained by the 

 commission to protect the territory where the systematic ex- 

 amination had been completed, after that time, would have been 

 a violation of at least the spirit of the act. Therefore, on June 

 4, with the passage of the new law, the quarantine hitherto 

 maintained about these counties was adandoned ; and since that 

 date all persons have had the uninterrupted privilege of taking 

 such animals as they desired into this territory. 



Inasmuch as the attention of the commission has been called 

 to statements which have been made to the effect that there was 

 a general opposition to the compulsory use of tuberculin, the 

 Board desires here to say that in its systematic work in these 

 counties it experienced substantially no opposition from the 

 owners of the animals tested, and as a rule secured the hearty 

 co-operation of such parties, who seemed to be desirous of hav- 

 ing their herds tested and all diseased animals removed, if any 

 were found. In this connection many instances might be cited 

 where parties in these localities who were at first opposed to 

 the use of tuberculin have, upon seeing it used, become con- 

 vinced of its reliability and usefulness. In the county of Barn- 

 stable no opposition was met by the commission in its work 

 until after the agitation of the matter regarding the restriction 

 of the use of tuberculin before your honorable body last year, 

 after which time more or less opposition was experienced in the 

 town of Harwich, where the work was then being conducted. 



