6 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



it. This fact which might be established beyond dispute by in- 

 numerable illustrations, has had, and is having, a depressing effect 

 upon our agriculture. It is driving young men from the farm 

 and reducing the taxable valuation of our strictly farming 

 districts. It has contributed largely to create the impression in 

 the popular mind that farming does not pay, that the tillage of 

 the soil offers less inducement than most other pursuits. 



Our great markets, which fix and control prices, are subject to 

 the control of municipal regulation. The only remedy would 

 seem to be a radical change in our market system which must 

 be a work of time. 



The stock of the farms has been generally healthy. The 

 most noteworthy exception has been that to which allusion is 

 made in the following 



REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS ON CONTAGIOUS 

 DISEASES AMONG CATTLE. 



To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth 

 of Massachusetts. 



The undersigned Commissioners on Contagious Diseases 

 among Cattle, in presenting their Annual Report, feel that they 

 have occasion to congratulate the legislature and the people of 

 the Commonwealth, that no contagious disease has ravaged and 

 destroyed our herds as in some former years. The Pleuro- 

 pneumonia seems to have been eradicated. At least no cases of 

 it have come to the knowledge of the Commissioners during the 

 year past, and we would fain hope to be exempt from its 

 scourge in the long future. The Cattle Plague, or Spanish 

 Fever, which was imported from the West to our State last 

 year, creating wide-spread panic and alarm, did not as it was 

 feared it might, reappear witli the warm season, and the influx 

 of Western and South- Western cattle. Stringent laws were 

 passed and enforced by the legislatures of several of the Western 

 States, which prevented all driving of Texas cattle to the 

 Northern and Eastern markets. By this means the immense 

 herds along the great routes of travel, from the Kansas border 

 to the seacoast, have been kept free of the plague, and our 

 own cattle protected from its ravages. Although, as a general 

 rule, the business of stock husbandry in the State, during the 

 year, has been successful and prosperous, and the herds exempt 



