BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 19 



not only great loss to our stockmen whose animals were affected, but 

 it would probably lead to the prohibition of our cattle and sheep by 

 other countries. The recent destruction of the magnificent live- 

 stock trade of Argentina by an outbreak of this disease should be a 

 warning as to what may at any time happen to the United States if our 

 vigilance is relaxed or if we fail to adopt every precaution that may 

 be reasonably suggested from an intimate knowledge of this elusive 

 contagion. 



A disease which can not be excluded even by quarantine is tuber- 

 culosis. The slow and insidious nature of this disease, the difficulty 

 of detecting it, the fact that it may be communicated to all species of 

 animals, and its generally fatal character, make it by far the most 

 dangerous and injurious of the plagues which threaten our live stock. 

 Unfortunately, it has already become so well known that familiarity 

 has bred contempt, and its powers for evil are not fully appreciated. 

 Notwithstanding the tuberculin test, it is to be feared that tuber- 

 culous cattle sometimes gain entrance to this country by the fraud- 

 ulent practice of treating them with this agent before the regular test 

 is made, and thus putting them into a condition which prevents them 

 from showing its effects. As animals imported for breeding purposes 

 are generally sold either to some breeder of high-class stock or to 

 some farmer or dairyman who is grading up his cattle, every tuber- 

 culous animal imported is liable to start a new center of disease, and 

 every center of disease so established becomes a distributing point 

 for the contagion and causes an amount of damage which can not be 

 fully appreciated until years afterwards. As has been officially deter- 

 mined of a celebrated herd in Canada, wherever cattle from that herd 

 were found there also was found tuberculosis, " and the Bow Park 

 herd, which was looked upon as one of the greatest benefits to the 

 farming community in western Canada, was really a danger, because 

 it disseminated tuberculosis among the ordinary farmers' herds." 



In the same way our owners of pure-bred herds are not only court- 

 ing danger to their own herds when they admit doubtful cattle from 

 abroad, but they are liable to disseminate the disease through the 

 herds of many innocent purchasers of their stock. Notwithstanding 

 this fact, there is an unreasonable and insistent demand by the spec- 

 ulators and others interested in the handling of such stock that the 

 regulations be relaxed to such an extent that the detection of diseased 

 cattle would be impossible. The very fact of this insistence indicates 

 that the present regulations are found inconvenient, and that a profit- 

 able though dangerous traffic has been checked. It is needless to add 

 that these regulations should be enforced in the interest of our farm- 

 ers, in the interest of the public health, and in the interest of our 

 export trade, and if the present restrictions are not sufficient to 

 exclude disease they should be added to and made more rigid until 

 the object is accomplished. 



FOREIGN MARKETS FOR LIVE STOCK. 



The number of cattle and sheep exported during the past year shows 

 a gratifying increase of this branch of our trade. Most of these ani- 

 mals have gone to Great Britain for immediate slaughter. It is believed 

 that the time has come when an effort should be made to introduce 

 our fine breeding animals to the stockmen of other countries. Our 

 herds are now as good as any in the world. The importation of breed- 

 ing stock from Europe is, except in very rare cases, for speculation 



