REPORT OF THE TUBERCULOSIS COMMITTEE. 
467 
The system adopted works admirably in actual practice, 
and may well serve as a model for other States to copy from 
in attempts to secure legislation for the suppression of bovine 
tuberculosis. Where a State Court of Claims does not exist, 
other arrangements for recompensing owners for cattle de¬ 
stroyed would have to be made, such as having the Legis¬ 
lature make a special appropriation for cattle slaughtered, 
or something of that kind. Five thousand dollars does not 
seem a large sum for beginning such an undertaking as pro¬ 
vided for in the bill, but it is wonderful how much can be 
accomplished with such a sum, as fully 20,000 cattle were 
examined, to say nothing of 125 or 150 autopsies that had to 
be made. Another winter a larger sum will be available to 
continue the good work so well begun. 
But little opposition was met with in carrying on the in¬ 
spection and tagging, and the services of a deputy sheriff 
were not required more than three or four times, but the 
work done so far has been chiefly in Orange and Westchester 
Counties, where the United States Bureau of Animal Indus¬ 
try was engaged in stamping out contagious pleuro-pneu- 
monia a few years ago, and the farmers and milkmen in these 
localities are used to having their cattle examined and 
slaughtered, whether they liked it or not. In a district 
where there had never been any inspection of cattle, and de¬ 
struction of the diseased, it is possible that more opposition 
might be met with. 
The work done is of great value in many ways. 
First , It shows that in a typical dairy farming community 
like Orange County, bovine tuberculosis is not as prevalent 
as many veterinarians believe, there having been only thirty- 
five cows killed out of about ten thousand examined; that is 
thirty-five one-hundredths per cent, were found to be dis¬ 
eased under ordinary means of inspection. 
Second. Among hardy grade cattle, with a Holstein, short¬ 
horn or Ayrshire cross, kept under ordinary farm conditions, 
tuberculosis is not as infectious as it is usually believed to be. 
In every instance but two, only one or two animals were 
found to be diseased in herds numbering, as a rule, anywhere 
