In recommending; legislation for pleuro-pneumonia, the difficulties, wliicli 

 always more or lesss attend the carrying out of measures for the prevention 

 of disease in cattle, liavc not been overlooked. The principal of these aro 

 the difficulty of dealing with cattle, in which an outbreak of the disease 

 occurs while they are travelling, and that of eradicating the infection in wild 

 herds and in town daii'ies. 



With respect to travelling cattle which might prove to be infected, there 

 is no reason why they should not be treated the same as travelling infected 

 sheep are under the " Diseases in Sheep Act of 18GG," and be cither sent 

 back to the run from which they started, or placed upon the nearest suitable 

 land, where those of them which were actually diseased should be destroyed 

 without compensation to the owner, and the rest inoculated and quarantined 

 for, say two months from the last appearance of the disease. In that case, 

 compensation as under the Sheep Act, should be paid by the owner of the 

 cattle to the proprietors of the land on which they were quarantined, for the 

 loss he sustained through the cattle being placed upon it. 



The stoppage of travelling cattle in this way would no doubt entail con- 

 siderable loss on their owner ; but it is surely much better that he should 

 sufter under such circumstances, and that the infection should be stayed, 

 than that he should continue his journey, leaving the infection in every herd 

 with which he came in contact, aiid spreading it broadcast throughout the 



Colony. , -11 



As to the eradication of the disease again from wild herds, it would no 

 doubt be difficult in some of the scrubby portions of the Colony to effect this 

 without considerable delay and expense ; but with these exceptions wild cattle 

 are now^ being gradually exterminated, and where this could not be dorie the 

 risk of the disease spreading from them, should they become infected, is not 

 very great, as they would be surrounded by inoculated herds. The town dairies 

 wovild be also sources of risk for a time, as the infection is certain to exist 

 for a much longer period in the cow' houses and sheds — once they are con- 

 taminated — than in paddocks or on open runs. It is now kept alive 

 in these dairies through the changes of cows which are continually taking 

 place ; and it is carried by the cow^s from the dairies to the paddocks to which 

 they are sent when dry. From the paddocks again it is taken by bullock 

 teams and store cattle into the interior. But with strict ins])ection and a 

 thorough disinfection of the infected premises, this risk also could be 

 removed. 



In this way this disease might be eventually eradicated from the Colony, 

 and if it could, to take no action but to trust to the disease dying out, as 

 some owners recommend, would be the merest folly ; for pleuro-pneumonia 

 will, if not eradicated, behave the same in this Colony as it has done in every 

 other part of the world. It will disappear, or rather smoulder, for a time, to 

 break out again as virulently as ever, when a fresh race of cattle have grown 

 up, and the circumstances, which favour an outbreak of the disease, occur. 



As will be seen by the opinions of six of the very highest veterinary 

 authorities at Home on this and other points, given in Appendix IT, pleuro- 

 pneumonia is quite as \irulent now^ in Great Britain and Ireland as it was in 

 18-11, two years after its outbreak there ; and that they consider the proper 

 mode of dealing with it is to slaughter the affected ca,ttle in a herd, and 

 quarantine, isolate, and disinfect the others under legislative enactment. 



