60 
N. H. PA AREN. 
provokes the impression, that the Agricultural Department takes 
particular pleasure in holding up before the gaze of the disgusted 
sufferers the multiplicity and greatness of their losses. As an 
expression of a faint feeling of sympathy, the report is flavored 
with a sprinkling of the kind of abominations which we are wont 
to see paraded in the agricultural press as remarkable specimens 
of sure cures, propounded by traveling “ boss doctors,” cow 
leeches, and town gossipers. 
It is but reasonable to believe that a competent head at the 
Agricultural Bureau, having a due regard for the true interests of the 
agricultural classes of the United States, in consideration of the 
vast amounts of capital invested in live stock, and the many and 
heavy losses to which the owners are constantly and almost help¬ 
lessly subjected, that such a functionary would long ago have taken 
steps towards ameliorating these conditions, and thus lessen the 
losses of this, the largest class of producers in the land. The 
inactivity in this direction displayed by this Department, warrants 
a belief that the matters under consideration will be apt to remain 
in status quo , unless the National Agricultural Congress, now in 
session, embraces the opportunity of its meeting to frame an 
appeal direct to the National Congress. Not only the press, but 
the whole agricultural population, would second such a motion. 
I have, on former occasions, through the agricultural press, 
and otherwise, called attention to the disastrous consequences that 
would be certain to follow on the appearance of a pestilence, like 
the rinderpest, from the want of a sufficiently numerous, able and 
scientific body of veterinarians in America. Judging from the 
spread of epidemics, their peculiar tendency to migrate from east 
towards west, over the whole globe, it seems almost certain that 
some day this country will be visited by such a plague, that will 
carry havoc among our numerous herds. Our loose and insuffi¬ 
cient government regulations, concerning the inspection of live 
stock, etc., at the various places of embarkation in Europe (regula¬ 
tions which would certainly not be sanctioned by any other civilized 
government), sufficiently indicate the facility with which such a 
plague, when once here, would be apt to devastate the vast herds 
of our broad land. With the example before us of the efficient 
