The Portland daily press., 1897-06-16
THE PRESS.
WEDNESDAY. JUNE 16.
THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE AND
TUBERCULOSIS.

Secretary McKeen of the State Board of
Agriculture, is quite right in assuming
that the PRESS is ready to present both
sides of the bovine tuberculosis question.
We have done so from the first. Every
body who has asked for hearing in the
PRESS has had one. We wish we could
return the compliment so far as the Board
of griculture is concerned, but the fact
is that from the discovery of tuberculosis
in cattle and from the beginning of the
agitation for measures to eradicate it the
State Board of Agriculture, through its
secretaries, has seemed to see but one
side of this matter and has seemed to inter
pose itself as an obstruction to all effec-
tive measures for the eradication or con-
troll of the disease. A for
mer secretary did much to minimize
the gravity of the disease, and it was
against his opposition that the
legislature passed some effective meas
ures to ferret out and destroy cows affect
ed with it. The Indifference of the Board
of Agriculture to this matter, which
would seem to be one of the most impor-
tant board of this sort could deal with,
has been very marked. So far as we have
been able to discover none of its secre-
taries has had word to say on the sub
ject in his annual report land only Sab
stracts'' of the report of the cattle com
missioners have found their way
into these reports. We find Secre-
tary McKeen discussing the Texas horn
fly, the sale of butterine, perfectly
healthful article, the adulteration of COM
mercial feed stufs, but never a word
about a disease which the veterinarian of
the Maine State College pronounces of so
grave nature, that all animals affected
with it shouldkbe killed and either burned
or deeply buried. Whether it is that the
Board of Agriculture have thought the
subject was of no Importance, or whether
they thought the agitation of the subject
would make them unpopular with the
farmers we do not undertake to say, but
their silence on the subject has been re-
markable, and its strangeness is made all
the more notable by the sudden appearance
of their mouth piece in public print ad-
vising farmers to resist to the bitter end"
pronounced by the animal bureau of the
National Department of Agriculture, after
repeated and long continued experiments,
entirely harmless to healthy animals and
declared also by. the Experiment Station of
the Maine State College of Agriculture an
institution which the Board has protested
great confidence in, in an official bulle-
L.
McKeen's letter elsewhere which purports
to give the view Of the State Board of
Agriculture, is a document that might
properly enough emanate from an attor-
ney retained by the milkmen who were
determined to resist the tuberculin test.
but it seems rather out of keeping with
State Board which owes duty to all the
people. If it correctly represents the
spirit of the Board of Agriculture then
the Board needs reforming. The Board
of Agriculture was never constituted to
advise farmers as to their legal rights.
OF to issue proclamations urging them
to resist regulations sanctioned by the
duly constituted authorities of the state
ito the bitter end. 1.-THE Boards of Health
Of this state are given authority to deter
mine subject to approval by a justice of
the Supreme Court, what regulations are
needed for the protection of the public
health. In pursuance to that authority
the Portland Board of Health made GER
tain regulations regarding the sale of
milk in this city and justice of the
Supreme Court approved them, and now
comes the Board Of Agriculture
through it's official mouthpiece, the secre-
tary, and advises in its capacity of an
official board of the state, all persons
affected by them to resist them "to the
bitter end"-which means to the last ex-
tremity and that is force. Suppose the State
Board OF Trade should issue a proclama
ton advising merchants to resist to the
bitter end the restrictions recently made
in regard to the sale of feed stuffs in this
state what shout would go up from the
Board of Agriculture!
What reasons does the Board give for