440 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



existence of the disease ; and that in fact it makes the State an 

 insurance company, as far as farmers are concerned, in con- 

 nection with tuberculosis, in the same sense that any live stock 

 company takes risks upon animals which they underwrite, 

 without, however, the farmers having to pay any premium, and 

 without the State's having the opportunity to first examine the 

 animal, to determine whether it is sound, before assuming the 

 risk. 



They claim that the payment to a fevored class of persons of 

 a sum of money by the State for animals destroyed, not based 

 upon their actual value, and only when the owner has con- 

 formed to certain regulations of the State, is unconstitutional, 

 because it is in no sense a reasonable compensation paid to an 

 individual for property appropriated for public uses within the 

 meaning of the constitution ; and because, as the money which is 

 paid is raised by taxation, it is not a payment necessary for " the 

 protection and preservation " of the citizens of the Common- 

 wealth, or otherwise, within the purpose for which State gov- 

 ernment has power to raise money by taxation. 



They assert that it is not true that animals which are tuber- 

 culous in any degree have a real value to the owner, which can 

 be regarded by the Commonwealth ; that such alleged value 

 depends upon the right of the owner to sell the milk or meat 

 derived from such an animal ; that by being allowed to retain 

 such an animal he reaps the benefit only so long as he is 

 allowed to sell its diseased products ; that, if the State should 

 examine all the neat cattle within its limits, and, instead 

 of destroying those diseased, plainly brand them as such, 

 and then should pass sanitary laws, which would be but just, 

 that the meat and milk from such tuberculous animals should 

 not be sold in the open market, from that moment the animal 

 would cease to have any earning value, and if after that the 

 State should go through and destroy such animals upon any 

 equitable system of appraisal, the owner would receive no 

 value for the same ; and therefore he should not, under existing 

 laws, receive a payment from the State because he is prevented 

 by means of the destruction of his tuberculous stock from sell- 

 ing diseased meat and milk ; that the public reaps the benefit 

 from the destruction of such animals in the same manner that it 

 does from laws which prevent the sale of adulterated food and 



