308 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



mates, save a present loss of £66 jooo a year. I cannot 

 but think that both these estimates are slightly below 

 what is probable. 



The important letter recently addressed by M. de 

 Leclercq, President of the Shorthorn Society of 

 France, to Lord Brougham, President of the English 

 Shorthorn Society, and urging that cattle should be sold 

 subject to the tuberculin test, emphasises the danger and 

 the possible losses to this country of temporising with this 

 matter. Some of the highest priced animals imported from 

 England, including the champion bull " Nonsuch," have 

 proved, on being tested and afterwards slaughtered, to 

 be seriously diseased. The French Government have 

 interdicted importation of cattle which do not pass the 

 tuberculin test at the frontier, and take special precautions 

 to defeat frauds alleged to be attempted by the repeated 

 inoculations just before importation. Belgium and 

 Switzerland are taking steps in the same direction, and 

 in Buenos Ayres, where most of our export cattle go, 

 Bills have been introduced to make the test com- 

 pulsory. 



M. Tisserand, Director-General of Agriculture in 

 France, thinks the disease has been and is increasing, 

 and that an attempt should be made to extinguish it 

 everywhere. Tuberculosis is a disease of slow evolution, 

 and may exist for a very long time without external 

 symptoms ; the animal may live unsuspected, and arrive 

 at the slaughter-house in apparent health, but will show 

 by post-mortem examination numerous tubercles in the 

 lungs, muscles, and other organs. While in contact with 

 others, it is a constant source of infection. 



The Government should, M. Tisserand insists, have 

 power to order the test, and to order the isolation of re- 

 acting animals. In his opinion, the English shorthorn 

 breeders will be obliged, sooner or later, to satisfy the 

 foreign purchaser, or lose their export trade. 



It must, therefore, be deeply regretted that the English 

 Society has thrown cold water on the reasonable French 

 demand. 



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