xxii BOAKD OF AGMCULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



It is true that the State law provides for the paj'-ment to 

 the cattle owners of one-half the health value for food or 

 milk purposes of animals thus condemned, but this allowance 

 will not purchase successors to the animals destroyed. 

 Then, again, the full value of the animals condemned is but 

 part of the loss to the owner. His business is broken into, 

 his herd discredited and his customers made afraid of his 

 product. The farmers of Massachusetts are ready to bear 

 their full share of the public burdens ; but when we investi- 

 gate this question we can but conclude that under the present 

 law they are called on to bear mucH more than their share. 

 These cattle are killed to guard the public health. While 

 the tuberculin test is admitted to be quite reliable and its 

 use justifiable as a safeguard to public health, it is con- 

 tended that it condemns many cattle that might never become 

 diseased in the common acceptation of the term, and would 

 never become dangerous to the public health. Tuberculosis 

 in cattle has been proved to be identical with consumption 

 in mankind, and we have a right to reason from what we 

 know of consumption. I quote from ' ' Tuberculosis in rela- 

 tion to animal industry and public health," by Dr. James 

 Law : ' ' Dr. Briggs tells us . . . that in the charity hos- 

 pital of the city (New York) thirty per cent of all deaths 

 show old lesions of tuberculosis now become stationary." 

 He quotes a Vienna hospital pathologist to the effect that he 

 finds similar old stationary lesions in eighty-five per cent of 

 all post-mortem examinations. Is it too much to claim that 

 a like proportion of bovines slightly affected with tubercu- 

 losis would never be injured by it ? Can there be any ques- 

 tion that such cases if condemned should be paid for in full ? 

 The public health must be guarded, but the cost should be 

 borne by the public, and not by one class of the people. 



The situation is a serious one for the agriculture of the 

 State. The neat stock of the State is rapidly decreasing, 

 the decrease having begun with the agitation of the danger 

 from tuberculosis. In 1890, 200,658 cows and 62,549 neat 

 cattle other than cows were assessed ; in 1894, 182,477 cows 

 and 41,059 neat cattle other than cows were assessed; a de- 

 crease of 18,181 cows and of 21,490 in other neat cattle, 

 making a total decrease in four years of 39,671, or 19 per 



