20 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



arrangement I felt it my duty to protest, because I deemed it 

 a matter of great importance to the Commonwealth that the 

 question should be fairly tested, whether cattle affected with 

 this disease are worth keeping. We had been requested by the 

 governor and council to test, as best we could, this and other 

 points. Up to this time we had labored under difficulties which 

 here would be entirely overcome ; — such as finding suitable per- 

 sons to take care of, and places to keep such cattle in, without 

 exposure to others. Here was a herd of valuable cattle, cows 

 valued by Mr. Payson at from eighty to one hundred and fifty 

 dollars. Certainly if any animals were worth keeping through 

 a siege of the disease these were. Perhaps on no other farm in 

 this State is there that precise care taken of stock, so as to be 

 able to tell the profit or loss attending it ; no one coula here' 

 complain of the danger of exposure to other herds, this being 

 the only one on the island. In short, if there be a place 

 in this Commonwealth where such an experiment can be carried 

 on successfully, it would seem that Deer Island is that place ; 

 or if there be any cattle worth thus experimenting with, such 

 stock as they had there is that stock. It had been found that 

 in many cases where cattle were killed the effects of the disease 

 were so slight that no one would pronounce the beef unhealthy 

 for food. Mr. Payson had killed an ox of this herd that Dr. 

 Thayer, as a physician, had advised him to use. I proposed that 

 if this herd must all be slaughtered, the stock appearing to be 

 healthy be held by Mr. Payson, so that should there be any such 

 cases as referred to, the State might not lose their whole 

 appraisal ; the Commissioners having previously decided that 

 the law did not allow them to dispose of the beef when the 

 slightest trace of the disease was found. But this proposition 

 was rejected. In a single day's slaughtering were found two 

 oxen appraised at two hundred and forty-seven dollars and fifty 

 cents, (1247.50,) and would have brought more than two 

 hundred dollars in market ; which both my associates decided 

 they should not hesitate to eat or give to their families, but 

 whicli we could not sell. The herd was slaughtered, with the 

 exception of four cows, two yearlings and a calf; and these 

 were saved, not as the report of the Commissioners might lead 

 one to conclude, for them to try an experiment with, but 

 because Mr. Payson would rather run the risk of their having 



