SPECIAL MEETING. 25 



late for any action Avitli a view to influence Congress, as that 

 body dissolves on the 4th of March. 



Professor Stockbridge. I will make a motion that the 

 Secretary of the ]\Iassachusetts Board of Agriculture be 

 requested to go before the Committee on Agriculture when 

 the Legislature shall convene, and ask them to introduce a 

 resolution into the Legislature to memorialize Congress on 

 this subject. That is, I suppose, sufficiently definite. Of 

 course I will risk it that the Secretary and the Committee 

 on Agriculture can work up such a resolution as will pass. 



The Chairman. The motion should be that the Secretary 

 of the Board be instructed to co-operate with the Committee 

 on Agriculture in procuring a memorial to Congress by our 

 Legislature upon the matter of the extirpation of contagious 

 pleuro-pneumonia . 



Mr. Upton. Why not include the Governor in the same 

 way that in the other resolution the President of the United 

 States is included ? It will bring the matter more directly 

 before the Legislature if the Governor presented it in his 

 annual address, and then the Secretary can back him up by 

 his petition to the Legislature. 



Professor Stockbridge. I accept the suggestion. 



The motion was then put and carried. 



The Chairman. In regard to the matter upon which Dr. 

 Winchester and Professor Stockbridge have spoken, that 

 is, the matter of tuberculosis, I do not know why they should 

 bring that matter before us, as one of the Commission has 

 already stated that they have law enough to do whatever 

 they choose in the management of contagious diseases in this 

 State. If tuberculosis is contagious, they can act under the 

 contao-ious disease law. 



INIr. Cheever. It has been suggested a number of times 

 within the past year or more that the cattle contagious dis- 

 ease law of the State has been growing through twenty years, 

 more or less ; that enactments have been made to fit certain 

 cases that existed at a particular time ; that experience has 

 been gained at that time ; but that the conditions have 

 changed somewhat, and that the law is not only weak in 

 some points, but quite cumbersome and incongruous. It 

 has been suggested that the Board of Agriculture might do 



