Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/441

Rh would cover the same ground for the prevention of the importation of insect pests.

But more stringent, sweeping and effectual than either of these laws are those establishing and defining the duties and powers of the Bureau of Animal Industry of the Department of Agriculture.

These laws and regulations empower the Bureau of Animal Industry to inspect all import and export domestic animals and all subject to interstate commerce for dangerous diseases. They empower it to proceed to stamp out such diseases as are deemed dangerous and to purchase diseased animals at a fair appraisal when necessary to stamp out a disease. In this work the bureau may and has repeatedly quarantined different states and sections of states. At the present time, the regulations of the bureau prohibit the movement of cattle from counties south of the Texas Fever Line to other counties within the same state, whether the cattle are for interstate commerce or not. These laws and regulations have been tested in the courts and so far have been held constitutional.

Furthermore, congress appropriates for the Bureau of Animal Industry a sum which is specifically for the control of outbreaks of disease. By this means the bureau was able to proceed at once against the foot and mouth disease in New England in 1902. A deficiency appropriation was at once authorized by the next congress (for $500,000, approved December 22, 1902), which enabled the work to proceed without delay. A similar amount was included in the regular appropriation for the bureau for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1904, but the work had been so thoroughly done under the previous appropriation for such work prior to that time that but little of the last appropriation of $500,000 was used. It was a portion of this unused balance, $250,000, which was subsequently appropriated for the investigation of the boll weevil and cotton culture.

Not only do the regulations prohibit the movement of diseased cattle or any cattle from a quarantined state or section, either by shipment or by driving, but they prohibit allowing cattle to drift from one section to another. Furthermore, any hay, straw or other material which may harbor disease from a quarantined area may be entirely regulated by the bureau.