THE AGRICULTURAL ASPECT OF TUBERCULOSIS. 
fruit, $2,386,290; vegetables (potatoes are included in staple 
products), $2,762,941; animal products, $5>39 8 >439- hay 
crop is quite largely dependent upon the dairy interest and the 
animal products are so largely dependent upon the dairy as to 
be almost a part of it. The veal product is certainly a dairy 
product, and most of the veal of the State is grown on the 
skim milk of our dairies. 
If the killing of tuberculous animals is to go on without 
compensation to the owners this most important industry must 
rapidly decrease, carrying along with this decrease a still greater 
decrease in the value of much of the farming property of the 
State. The fine dairy barns that dot the farms of the State will 
become valueless and the pastures will be allowed to grow up 
to brush. The State can ill afford a decrease in its agriculture 
and in its agricultural population. If the fight against tubercu¬ 
losis is for the public good, the public should make part at least 
of the sacrifice deemed necessary. Especially is this proper in 
view of the fact that many cases of tuberculosis in human sub¬ 
jects do not terminate fatally and many apparently recover. I 
quote from “Tuberculosis in Relation to Animal Industry and 
Public Health,” by Dr. James Law. “ Dr. Biggs tells us . . . . 
that in the Charity Hospital of the city (New York) 30% 
of all deaths show old lesions of tuberculosis now become 
stationary. He quotes a Vienna hospital pathologist to the 
effect that he finds similar old stationary lesions in 85% of 
all post-mortem examinations. This leaves but 15% who 
have not suffered from tuberculosis. It is not too much to 
claim that a like proportion of bovines slightly affected with 
tuberculosis would never be apparently injured by it. Such 
cases should be paid for in full if sacrificed for the public gooa. 
But it would be difficult for the officials to discriminate in the 
matter of allowance for cattle killed, and so it would probably 
be better to fix upon a portion of the value of the animal in 
health as the amount that should be paid to the owner ot an an¬ 
imal condemned to destruction because infected with tuberculo¬ 
sis. I believe the owners of neat cattle, as a class, are unwilling 
