41G BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



is vested in the commission, and in no case does the owner of 

 such animal receive any payment for such animal, even though 

 the horse may be one of great value, no matter how long he 

 may have been owned within the State, or how innocent such 

 person may have been in its purchase, or how careful he may 

 have b(^en to guard against its exposure to such contagion. 



As to all cases, however, of animals destroyed under the 

 provisions of this act where it is subsequently shown by post- 

 mortem examination or otherwise that the animal condemned 

 was not afflicted with the disease for which it was destroyed, 

 the owner receives the actual value of it from the Common- 

 wealth. While this provision for payment of the actual value 

 of such animal has been the law for two years prior to the 

 passage of the 1894 act, no provision was made in these acts 

 as to how the owner could recover the value of such an animal 

 if the commission or one of its members maintained that the 

 animal was diseased. The commission in its report of last year 

 therefore recommend that some simple provision be made 

 which should give the owner the right to appeal from the 

 decision of this Board, and have the matter of the existence of 

 the disease determined by a disinterested tribunal. An ade- 

 quate provision for this purpose was therefore made in section 

 46 of this act, by a petition to the superior court ; and thus 

 every person is given a fair opportunity to appeal from this 

 Board to determine in every case whether any animal de- 

 stroyed by it is actually diseased or not. The commission 

 deem it important that the existence of this provision be kept 

 in mind, l)ecause, since the adoption of the tuberculin test by 

 it, which has been discussed in this report, complaints have 

 been brought to the attention of the commission that it is usino; 

 an unreliable test, and, relying solely upon it, animals which 

 are in fact entirely free from the disease are being killed, and 

 that thus the owner is receiving only half of its value for 

 limited purposes, or even in some cases no value whatever ; yet 

 no owner of any animal destroyed has, up to the making of 

 this report, ever brought any action under this provision to 

 review the decision of this Board, and this in itself the commis- 

 sion feel is a strong endorsement of the accuracy of tliis test. 



This provision as to the payment for tuberculous cattle 

 authorizes the payment of ' ' one-half value thereof at the time 



