The star-independent. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1904-1917, 1915-02-20
RADICAL Change IN FOOT
AND MOUTH QUARANTINE
Restricted Area Much Enlarged By the
Secretary Of Agriculture to Protect
Other Sections From Infected Ship
ments Of Live Stock

Washington, D. c., Feb. 1.-two
orders just signed by the Secretary of
Agriculture make radical changes in
the quarantine regulations for the foot
and mouth disease. All the territory
east of the Mississippi and north of
Tennessee is now included in the quar-
antined area and no shipments of live
stock, except for the purpose of imme-
diate slaughter, will be permitted from
this area to the south or west. Stock
owners, however, in the States of Vir-
ginia, West Virginia, Vermont, Maine
and the District of Columbia, may ship
out their stock upon affidavit that it has
been on their farms for a certain length
of time and has not been exposed to
any risk of contagion.
This step the authorities believe to
be necessary for the protection of the
South, Southwest and West, which have
not as yet been affected by the disease
The recent discovery of few cases
where cattle, shipped from areas where
the disease had existed, carried it to
previously uninfeeted sections, such as
four counties in Kansas, convinced the
department that no precautions will
make such shipments absolutely safe.
The new measure, it is said, should con-
fine the disease to the regions in which
it has already made its appearance and
in which the work of eradicating it
will be pushed as before. All of the
slaughtering centers are within this
area and very few shipments for i'm
mediate slaughter are expected to be
made out of it.
Under the new. regulations territory
within the area now quarantined, which
was formerly free, is designated as re-
stricted territory. In this restricted ter
ritory live stock may be moved freely
to other points within the same ter
ritory, but cannot pass beyond the linn
its of the quarantined area, except for
immediate slaughter. The regulations
governing the area known respectively
as closed, exposed and modified, remain
practically the same as before. From the
modlted area live stock can be shipped
for immediate slaughter to points
within the quarantined area and from
exposed area as well, after a prelimi-
nary inspection and certifcation by fed
eral authorities. No stock may be ship.
ped out of the closed area for any pur-
pose and can only be shipped into it for
immediate slaughter.
Immediate slaughter is now defined
as slaughter within forty eight hours
after the stock arrives at the abattoir.
NO reshlpments from abattoirs are now
permitted. These regulations have been
made necessary by the fact that in a
number of instances cattle ostensiblv
intended for immediate slaughter at one
abattoir have been held there for sew
eral days and then reshipped to other
yards where they have been allowed to
remain until the disease had actually
broken out.
These regulations are embodied in
the order known as Bureau of Animal
Industry order No. 234, which defines
and Classics the various areas in all
the States affected. Another order
Bureau OF Animal Industry order No.
Z3S, requires that on and after Feb
ruary II, 1915, all live stock. unless
intended for immediate slaughter, shall
be transported only in railroad ears
which have been cleaned and disinfeet
ed. This applies to the whole United
States.