Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1922-03-08
Bovine T. B. and Lowell.

(Hindley in Rutland Herald)
When / was at Lou LovelPs place
near Bellows Falls last June, the DE
Fosset veterinarians had just finish
ed testing his herd.
They tagged a Guernsey bull and
cow and one Jersey cow as reactors,
also listed one suspect. For good
and sufficient reasons they didn't
brand the animals.
At the time I didn't believe the
first three were diseased, certainly
not badly enough to be slaughtered,
yet that is what the Brigham-De-Fos-
set bunch wanted done with them. In
fact they reported the bull "Mixter
Volunteer" dead and Lou had to con-
vince the Guernsey herd-book folks
, that he still lived.
Anyway, Lowell refused to slaugh-
ter the bull or the COWS, and kept
them until last week, when he had
| them tested again.
Result: Not a reactor in the bunch
I've got the records before me, GER
| titled by two veterinarians, and they
put the cattle through everything,
| -cutaneous, (skin) ophthalmic
(eye) and intra-dermic (taiD tests,
| and they all "come Clean" seven
IIlOIlLuS dlCGI DCT OSScCS HiCh COli-
| demned them and Lowell refused to
slaughter them!
What do you make of that, Wat
son?
What light does that throw on this
great T. B. machine which is spend
| ing upwards of half a million year
of taxpayers money-and wants
Either the cattle were not tuber-
culous when they were tested last
June or they have gotten well since.
The cows have dropped good calves,
sucked them, and calves, cows and
bull are certainly well now
The alternative is that the skin
test isn't conclusive, and a good many
well informed men believe just that.
1t is just as necessary to use COM
mon sense in the dairy business as in
any other buiness, and the man who
takes the say-so of DeFosset veteri-
narians without grain of salt is GO
ing to slaughter a lot of healthy
cows.
In fact, I venture the assertion
that very large proportion of the
cattle condemned and killed are
healthy, useful animals, whose de-
struction is an economic crime and
the indemnity of which is an imposi-
tion on the taxpayer from which he
derives no benefit.
| Now those cows and that bull are
worthless for commercial purposes.
No one who believes in the test will
buy them. They can be used for
breeding, but even the cows milk is
banned and has to be fed to hogs.
Yet two first-class veterinarians
| say those cows are perfectly healthy.
As matter of fact they are healthy
| and have the papers to prove it.
Which brings up the case of w. e.
Pierce's Braeside Tekstra, another
Bellows Falls COW, similarly con-
demned, afterwards passed and sent
to Gaithersburg, Md.
This was blooded COW, and send
| ing her out of the state was a pun
ishable offense, according to what
| Ebert Brigham told me, so after a
lot of shenannigan they finally had
/, her killed and found one bit of a
| gland which they thought was diseas-
ed.
A microscopic case," they called
it, yet the labratory in Burlington
called it "negative!3
| Anyway, the cow had passed test
after test, her viscera showed no Wis
ible signs of disease (lesions) and yet
/ state and federal authorities got her
killed.
Don't tell me that Braeside Tekstra
wasn't a useful and valuable animal
perfectly fit to raise calves if not to
milk
All that sort of hair-splitting stuff
| is bunk from common-sense stand
point, yet the laws back up these T.
B. machines in what they do and the
/ man who does not conform is injured
either deliberately or by the automat-
| ic action of the law.
IF Brigham and DeFosset take ex-
ceptions, let them prosecute Lowell
and Pierce and let me report the trial
/ certainly object to being taxed for
| that sort of stuff.