A VETERINARY PROFESSORSHIP. 145 



Now, it is impossible for this great continent to become, as it 

 possibly may, the greatest farming country in the world, — your 

 broad acres are such, the conditions of this continent are such, 

 that you may rise to be the greatest agricultural country in the 

 world, — it is impossible, I say, for you to become such, if you 

 overlook those troubles which come upon the poor farmer like 

 a clap of thunder. He knows not what the causes of the tem- 

 pest are, but it comes and blights his grain and destroys his 

 animals. I have heard of one place in Illinois, where some 

 Texas drovers stopped witii their herd over niglit, and three 

 or four hundred head of cattle were destroyed in a few weeks. 

 Children were literally starving because they had no substitute 

 for the milk that came from the cows. The life of the people 

 was at stake there. So it was with us in England at the time 

 of the cattle-plague. And you have it still in New York, in 

 Philadelphia, in Boston, — I beg your pardon, not in Boston ; 

 Massachusetts deserves well of the country, — but in New York, 

 in Philadelphia, in Baltimore, in Washington itself, their cows 

 are diseased, and the withered flesh of these animals is con- 

 sumed by human beings. What can you have but diseased 

 men, women and children? 



You see you have here one of the most important sanitary 

 questions of the day, and you can meet it by the study of pre- 

 ventive medicine, which every farmer and every man who has 

 any stock should understand. You should have the finest 

 veterinary college in the world. It is a disgrace to the Ameri- 

 can people that they have not the finest veterinary college 

 in the world, although they are so young. But I want to drive 

 my nail home. I am going back very shortly to England, and 

 I wish you to have these words ringing in your ears : that you 

 should do everything that possibly can be done, under the cir- 

 cumstances, for the education of your farmers in veterinary 

 science, and for the development of veterinary institutions. Go 

 to the next legislature and ask for a veterinary professor at the 

 Agricultural College. I will go to Boston ten times and lecture 

 upon the matter, and I will ask Prof. Agassiz to help me. I 

 will do more. I will provide you with a competent man, if 

 I can only be permitted to do so — a young man of large under- 

 standing, with ability and pluck, and a man who can stand up 

 and not be ashamed of the veterinary profession. Men say, 



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