3
The Mysore State, which possesses many valuable cattle and which is known
for its cattle-breeding industry throughout India, has for the first time selected
a student of its own, and it is understood that His Highness the Mahárája contem-
plates sending students regularly every year to the College. The Limbdi State,
which was hitherto not represented in the College, has also come forward with
one student. The Bhávnagar State has added one more student, this time a
Mahomedan gentleman. The Kolhápur State has contributed two students,
one to the A Class and the other to the B Class.
The Local Board of Hyderabad has followed the example of Shikárpur and
Karachi by sending one student of its own. This new student, a Hindu
gentleman, being an Hospital Assistant, has been admitted to the B Class, so
that all the three Sindhi students are at present in the same class.
The Government and Municipality free students are shown in Appendix F.
It will be observed that some of the free studentships have not been availed of—
a result mainly due to the paucity of candidates and partly to the fact that some
of the free students withdrew from the College and one was successful in
securing the Mysore State scholarship. The grant of free studentships has not
proved so attractive as was at first expected. Perhaps better results may be
secured by the offer of a limited number of stipends, say of Rs. 15 per mensem
each, to deserving men after a competitive examination, the offer being subject
to the condition that failure at any one of the examinations will involve forfeiture
of the stipend.
7. The employment of graduates has been throughout the year a matter
of serious consideration, as on this depends the future prosperity of the College.
Although numerous applications were received from the Commissariat, Horse-
breeding and other Departments, the pay offered was generally so small as not
to be acceptable to our graduates. Notwithstanding this fact, out of the new-
batch of 19 graduates, all are by this time fairly settled in life. Appendix G
gives the names of the graduates of 1890 and shows how each is employed. It
will be observed that one of the graduates has gone out of the line and has be-
come a school-master. It is highly gratifying to note that four of them have
shown an independent spirit and set up as private practitioners—one in Bombay,
one at Poona, one at Belgaum and one at Zanzibár. The number of veterinary
graduates in private practice now comes to 7, and it is hoped that the enterprise
shown by these men will be crowned with success, so that others may be induced
to follow their example.
Some of the appointments, made during the year under report, deserve
special notice. The Bhávnagar State has placed one graduate in charge of the
State stud ; and the Gowalior State has selected one for the veterinary charge of
the State cavalry. Mr. J. K. Batlivala, a promising graduate of 1889, who was
employed in the Morvi State, has been appointed to be Assistant Professor in the
Veterinary School at Rangoon. The Thákor Sáheb of Morvi has employed
another graduate in place of Mr. Batlivala. Two more graduates were sent to
Burmah to be employed under the Director of Agriculture there, but they have
since resigned as they were ordered to proceed to Lashio, an out-of-the-way
place, where they found they could not maintain on the pay offered to them. One
of them has returned to Bombay, and the other, it is understood, contemplates
starting private practice at Rangoon. Two of the fresh batch of graduates, who
were the nominees of Kolhápur and Baroda States respectively, were not offered
employment in their own States and so had to be provided for elsewhere. The
reports received from time to time as to the efficiency of the graduates employ-
ed in different capacities are on the whole satisfactory; only at one or two places
they have failed to give satisfaction as regards performance of work assigned to
them outside their veterinary duties. To prevent any more such failures occur-
ing it is contemplated to impart an elementary knowledge of subjects allied to
Veterinary Science though not belonging to it.
8. Outbreaks of contagious diseases of cattle were pretty frequent during
the year under report, the foot and mouth disease being most prevalent. In the
Thána and Kolába districts and in the town of Bombay there were numerous
cases of the latter disease. The disease was, however, of a very mild type and
did not make any serious havoc among the animals affected, most of whom