180 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



infection exists. You have the infection of the food box, the 

 watering trough in the barn yard which is visited by other ani- 

 mals and in this way the disease finds its way from one to the 

 other. 



As I have said several times, the only way you can cut out 

 this thing is by the application of this system. The simplicity 

 of this test is so great it can be readily applied by any one who 

 has had any experience. The veterinary stands ready at any 

 time to make this test, but the demand is so great that it has 

 become necessary for us to teach students how to handle this 

 thing and become efficient in its use. 



There are at the present time hundreds of non-professional 

 students testing our herds in order to detect the presence of this 

 disease. 



Your state should take hold of this thing and consider it 

 from the standpoint of the public welfare. 



Here is a question you face as stock brokers. Our knowl- 

 edge has come to us within the last ten or fifteen years. In 

 many states this progressive legislation has been put in force. 

 It encourages the farmers. If they find that tuberculosis does 

 exist, the state steps in and takes care of the infected animal and 

 gives a partial compensation. In our state three-fourths of the 

 value, so if an animal is appraised at $50.00, the owner will 

 receive $37.50 and thus lose $12.50. Will you stop at that 

 $12.50 and say you will not take hold of this thing because you 

 do not get full value? What is its value? It has no value. If 

 the disease is found to be in the early stages its meat value is 

 unimpaired, but in the later stages it is of no value whatever. 

 Suppose you say you will not do that. What will happen ? 

 Your case will be the .same as these other cases I have told you 

 of. That disease is going to spread until it may possibly wreck 

 the entire herd. 



I know one herd that spread it to sixteen other herds ; it 

 spread into Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and other states and it 

 drove three men into bankruptcy. This disease had been 



