156 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



for veal, in Brighton, Watertown and Cambridge. As the 

 laws of the State of New York provide that calves under four 

 weeks old can be shipped out of the State only in crates, un- 

 less sent in cars with their mothers, and then only with the 

 understanding that they are to be raised, it was necessary to 

 ship them to some fictitious dairy company, in order to mis- 

 lead the 'New York State officials, and give them the idea that 

 the calves were to be raised. These little creatures were 

 therefore shipped to the " Cambridge Dairy Company " and 

 other fictitious concerns; and the fact of their arriving in 

 crates ought to be prima facie evidence that they were less 

 than four weeks old, and as a matter of fact nearly all were 

 less than a week old, as the navel strings were still hanging 

 from most of them, fresh and damp. The way they were 

 raised was by the heels when their throats were cut. As these 

 calves were nearly all grade Holsteins, they would when alive 

 weigh eighty pounds or a little over, and would dress forty 

 pounds with their shins on ; therefore the agents of the local 

 boards of health stamped them as fit for food, without any re- 

 gard to section Tl, chapter 56 of the Revised Laws, as 

 amended by chapter 411, Acts of 1908 (a later chapter, by the 

 way, than chapter 329, Acts of 1908). Some of the earlier 

 shipments went to a stall at the Brighton Abattoir, where they 

 had the United States inspection. This was too strict for the 

 butchers, who stopped killing the calves there, and took them 

 to a slaughterhouse in Watertown. 



Agents of the ISTew York State Department of Agriculture 

 were sent here to investigate the matter, and the Chief of the 

 Cattle Bureau gave them all the assistance he could. These 

 agents said that the law relating to killing " bob veal " in 

 New York State was being very rigidly enforced, and that 

 because of this the calves brought to the railroad stations to be 

 shipped away were sorted. The good calves were shipped to 

 New York City to be killed for veal, and the little bob calves, 

 two or three days old, were packed into crates like chickens 

 and turkeys, and sent to Massachusetts " dairy companies," 

 to be " raised." Some of these poor little creatures, when 

 they arrive at the railroad stations in !N"ew York State, are so 

 weak that they are staggering. Such calves are knocked on 



