644 CATTLE AND DAIRY FARMING. 



tropical countries are wholly free from many diseases of friged zones, 

 and any attempt to regulate them by quarantine would be useless. 

 AYhen a country happens to be free Irom a certain disease, even if it 

 should be a disease that cannot be imported, many are inclined to at- 

 tribute its absence to the existing quarantine regulations. 



Xo\v it is well known that there has never been a case of hydrophobia 

 in any one of the Australasian colonies, yet thousands of dogs have 

 been imported from countries where this awful disease is prevalent. Jf 

 there had been a law against such importations we should doubtless 

 find many persons ready to proclaim that the freedom of tbo colonies 

 from this disease was due solely to the prohibition. 



It is said that the law forbidding the, importation of cattle into New 

 Zealand was passed mainly for the beneiit of speculators. The pro- 

 hibition will, of course, enhance temporarily the price of cattle, but in 

 the end will prove very injurious to the cattle industry of the colony. 

 Should there be no further importation of thoroughbreds into New 

 Zealand, in a few years the cattle will not only cease to improve but 

 will vastly deteriorate. The prohibition does not apply to Australia, 

 yet the only cattle disease ever found in the colony was originally 

 brought from Australia. 



Some time ago the United States Government appointed a committee 

 of inquiry into the dangers which would arise to that country from the 

 introduction of neat cattle from Europe for the improvement of native 

 breeds, and the committee reported that the introduction of neat cattle 

 did not tend to the spread of contagious or infectious diseases. The 

 operation of the sections of the United States law prohibiting the in- 

 troduction of neat cattle was therefore suspended, upon the condition 

 that the importers and owners should submit to sueh orders as the Sec- 

 retary of the Treasury should from time to time prescribe. 



When cattle are quarantined in the United States the arrangements 

 lor their reception at the various Government cattle stations are so per- 

 fected as to occasion the least possible trouble and expense to the im- 

 porters. The Xcw Zealand government might will imitate the exam- 

 ple of the United States, for there is no infectious cattle disease in the 

 United States that quarantine would not effectually guard against. 



In this connection it is well enough to mention that when the British 

 Parliament adopted a resolution prohibiting the importation of cattle 

 from countries where the foot-and-mouth disease prevailed, charges 

 were made in Parliament that such diseases existed in the United States. 

 There appeared to be no other foundation for these charges thai? the 

 fact that cattle suffering from these diseases had been landed in the 

 United States direct from Great .Britain, and that all such cattle had 

 been separated in the most thorough and complete manner from the 

 American herds. The United States Treasury Cattle Commission re- 

 ported from Boston, 3Iass., July LM, IS.S.'J, as follows: 



beginning with the great rendezvous of cattle at Kansas City, Council Bln(fn, and 

 Omaha we have made card'ul investigation.; along all the lines of cattle traffic as far 

 us the Kasteni ^aboard. In this investigation we, have included all the great stock- 

 yards where cattle are detained for feeding, -watering, sale, A:c.; all (ho great feeding- 

 htables connected witli distilleries, and starch, glucose, and other factories; all the 

 eily dairies where Mock-yards exist, and where the, herds are replenished from such 

 stock-yards, and to a largo extent the great dairying districts into which cows arc 

 drawn from the above-named stock-yards and lines of travel. Up to (ho present date 

 \ve have made observations in the stock-yards at the seaboard the terminal end of 

 our e-iftle trallie and that to which all infection must, gra vitate but apart from the 

 imp-Hied cases from Great Britain we have been unable t<i find n singlo case of tho 

 foot-and-mouth disease complained of. 



