"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. 

 When 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. 



Now 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 awlul disease is prevalent. If 

 there had been a law against sucb importations we should doubtless 

 fii;id many persons ready to proclaim that the freedom of the colonies 

 from this disease was due solely to tlie prohibition. 



It is said that the-law forbidding the importatiou of cattle into New 

 Zealand was passed mainly for the benefit of sjjeculators. The pro- 

 hibition will, of course, enhance temporarily the i)rice 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 vastlj' 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 Unjted 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. Th6 

 operatioii 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 such orders as the Sec- 

 retary of the Treasury should from time to time prescribe. 



When cattle are quarantined in the United States the arrangements 

 for 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 New Zealand government might will imitate the exam- 

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

 United States t-hat quarantine would not eflectually 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 than the 

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

 United States direct froui Great Britain, aud 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, Mass., 'July 21, 1883, as follows : 



Beginning witli the great rendezvous of cattle at Kansas City, Council Blnffs and 

 Omaha we have made careful investigations along all the lines of cattle traffic as far 

 as the Eastern teaboard. In this investigation we have incladed all the sreat sroek- 

 yards where cattle are detained for feeding, watering, sale, &c.; all the great ieediu"-- 

 Btables connected with distilleries, and starch, glucose, aud other factories- all tffe 

 city dairies where stock-yards exist and where tho herds are replenished from suoli 

 stock-yards, and to a large extent the great dairying districts into which cows are 

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

 we Lave made observations in the stock-yards at tbo seaboard-the terminal end of 

 our cattle traffic and that to which all iufeotiou must gravitate— bat apart from the 

 imported cases from Great Britain we have been unable to And a Bingle case of the 

 toot-and-mouth disease complained of. 



