cotton-region messages an additional saving of about four thousand dollars ($4,000) will result to the Bureau during the current year.

Public appreciation of the warnings of the Weather Bureau and the growing importance attached to their value are very well illustrated in a recent suit against the Pennsylvania Railroad Company for the value of a canal boat wrecked during the storm of August 24 and 25, 1894. The lost boat broke loose from a Pennsylvania Railroad Company tug, by which it was being towed to South Amboy, N. J. In the progress of the trial Sergeant Dunn, the Weather Bureau observer at New York city, testified that he had warned the public, including the Pennsylvania Railroad Company officials, of the approaching storm from Cape Hatteras. The question raised in the case is whether it is a legal duty of those having water craft in their charge to respect Weather Bureau warnings. The decision of the court is awaited with intense curiosity, because it involves, to a certain extent, the value of Weather Bureau warnings. It all indicates that in the near future marine insurance may contain, in every policy, a proviso by which the insurance will become inoperative and void in case of loss by a storm against which the Weather Bureau shall have sent out timely warnings.

BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY.

The most effective and valuable work rendered by the Bureau of Animal Industry to the commercial interests of the country during the past fiscal year has been in the inspection of meat for the export and interstate trade. At forty-six (46) abattoirs, situated in seventeen (17) cities, the number of animals inspected has increased from four million eight hundred and eighty-five thousand six hundred and thirty-three (4,885,633) in 1893 to twelve million nine hundred and forty-four thousand and fifty-six (12,944,056) in 1894. The cost of inspection has been reduced from 43 cents per head in 1893 to 13 cents per head in 1894.

The ante-mortem and post-mortem inspection of animals intended for human consumption will soon be completely under civil-service rules and altogether in the hands of skilled veterinarians. Hereafter no person can be appointed an inspector except he shall have exhibited to the U. S. Civil Service Commission his diploma from a reputable veterinary college, and also have submitted to and passed a satisfactory examination before that honorable body. Thus all export and interstate meat will have been examined, scientifically, by an employé of the U. S. Government, and by him certificated as wholesome and edible. This governmental certification by skilled veterinarians is in fact a guaranty in all European and other markets of the wholesomeness of American meat. Possibly, as a sanitary precaution, it would be well for the United States to demand governmental inspection and chemical analysis of specimens of all wines, brandies, and other beverages which are imported

from Europe, at the hands of the governments of those countries whence they are exported. If it is wisdom on the part of foreign nations to demand inspection and certification (for sanitary reasons) by the American Government of its exports to them, and wise for us to comply with that demand, would it not be equally wise (upon sanitary grounds) for the United States to require governmental inspection and certification. of all foreign nations for exports into the United States intended for the consumption of its citizens?

The amount of pork microscopically examined for export during the year was thirty-five million four hundred and thirty-seven thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven (35,437,937) pounds. But in the year 1893 it was only twenty million six hundred and seventy-seven thousand four hundred and ten (20,677,410) pounds. In 1894, one million three hundred and seventy-two thousand four hundred and ten (1,372,410) pieces, from as many different carcasses, have been microscopically examined under the direction of this Bureau.

The cost of microscopic inspection has been diminished during the year 1894 from 83 cents per carcass or piece, in 1893, to 63 cents per capita. This indicates a reduction of nearly 25 per cent. The cost of inspecting microscopically the pork sold in Germany and France (no other European countries demand such inspection) by the United States, in the year 1893, was one hundred and seventy-two thousand three hundred and sixty-seven dollars and eight cents ($172,367.08). But during the year 1894 the quantity so inspected was increased fifteen millions (15,000,000) of pounds, and the cost of inspection was in the same twelve months reduced to eighty-eight thousand nine hundred and twenty-two`dollars and ten cents ($88,922.10).

During the last half of the fiscal year the United States exported twenty-two million eight hundred and nineteen thousand two hundred and thirty-one (22,819,231) pounds, and the cost of inspection was thirty-six thousand four hundred and eighty-eight dollars and fortytwo cents ($36,488.42).

The Secretary of Agriculture recommends that the law providing for the inspection of export and interstate meat be so amended as to compel the owners of the meat inspected to pay the cost of the microscopic inspection. If governmental inspection and certification widens the foreign and interstate markets for the products of any slaughtering and packing establishment, it, by having increased the demand for those products, has enhanced their prices. It is only equitable that those pay for the inspection who are directly pecuniarily benefited thereby.

As long as the Government pays for microscopic meat inspection, many establishments will demand inspection which have neither interstate nor export trade. If the inspection is worth anything at all to killers, packers, and dealers in fresh or cured meats, they should pay for it. As the law exists to-day, any slaughtering establishment, no matter how insignificant, which declares it has or expects to have for

eign trade in meats, has a legal right to demand Governmental inspection and certification. It costs individuals nothing. When the killers, packers, and dealers demanding the inspection are compelled, by law, to pay the cost thereof, only that inspection will be called for which is necessary for the facilitation of foreign trade. No inspection will be asked merely to give employment to microscopists and others, at the expense of the Treasury of the United States. It is temptingly easy to be benevolent and generous at public cost.

The live beef cattle exported and tagged during the year numbered three hundred and sixty-three thousand five hundred and thirty-five (363,535). This is an increase of sixty-nine thousand five hundred and thirty-three (69,533) head, or more than 25 per cent, as compared with the previous year.

In the same time the employés of the Bureau of Animal Industry inspected, also for export, eighty-five thousand eight hundred and nine (85,809) head of sheep.

After the experience of supervising the transportation of export animals for some years, many modifications of the accommodations and conditions for their proper care have been insisted upon and adopted. By these innovations and ameliorations the losses in shipping live cattle have been very much reduced. In 1891 those losses were 1.6 per cent, in 1892 they were 0.75 per cent, in 1893, 0.47 per cent, and in 1894 0.37 per cent; sheep lost in transportation during the present fiscal year, 1.29 per cent. This latter rate of loss indicates that further modifications of the regulations regarding the shipment of sheep are desirable.

Stock yards inspection is maintained for the purpose of tagging export cattle, and for supervising their shipment to the seaboard and certifying their healthfulness at the time they leave American ports. It is further intended to prevent the dissemination of Texas fever. Southern cattle inspection is reported by the calendar year instead of the fiscal year, in order to include an entire quarantine season, which extends from February 15 to December 1. During 1893 there were inspected and placed in the quarantine peus in various stock yards one million seven hundred and thirty-seven thousand three hundred and eighty (1,737,380) head of cattle. During the same period of time inspectors supervised the cleaning and disinfection of fifty-six thousand four hundred and six (56,406) cars. In Great Britain the inspection of animals received from the United States has been continued for the purpose of learning the condition in which they reach British ports and the amount of losses suffered at sea from diseases with which animals in transit are often affected, and also for the purpose of ascertaining the adequacy of the sanitary regulations and fittings of the vessels engaged in animal transportation.

This thorough inspection, it has been hoped, would result in the revocation of the British restrictions upon the American cattle trade, by

demonstrating that there is no danger, through animals of the United States, of the introduction of contagious diseases into the United Kingdom. More than two years have passed without the development of any pleuro-pneumonia or other diseases in the United States which might be, through our export cattle, made dangerous to the stock interests of Great Britain. But the hoped-for revocation of British restrictions remains unrealized.

The expense of sanitary inspection of cattle shipped to Europe has averaged 10 cents for each one exported. The cost of inspecting Southern cattle and supervising the disinfection of cars and stock yards averages 2.7 cents per animal.

During the year there were quarantined eight hundred and six (806) head of imported animals. In the same time there were imported from Canada and inspected one hundred and ninety-four (194) head of cattle, two hundred and forty thousand four hundred and twenty-seven (240,427) sheep, thirteen hundred and two (1,302) hogs, and two (2) goats.

The scientific inquiries of the Bureau of Animal Industry have progressed steadily during the year, and much tuberculin and mallein have been furnished to State authorities for use in the ascertainment and treatment of tuberculosis and glanders.

The appropriation to the Bureau of Animal Industry for the year ending June 30, 1894, was eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars ($850,000). The expenditures during the year out of that appropriation aggregate only four hundred and ninety-five thousand four hundred and twenty-nine dollars and twenty-four cents ($495,429.24). This leaves an unexpended balance of three hundred and fifty-four thousand five hundred and seventy dollars and seventy-six cents ($354,570.76).

In the appropriation bill for the current year (1894-'95), tuberculosis and sheep scab are specifically mentioned among those diseases which the Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to guard against in such manner as he may think best. Endeavoring to carry out the suggestive provisions of the act above cited, the Department has avoided expending public funds for such purposes as private owners or the respective States ought reasonably to provide for. It is believed to be the duty of the Bureau of Animal Industry to seek, in every possible way, scientific enlightenment, to be disseminated among the agricul turists of the country, so as to lead up to the extermination and suppression of the diseases of domestic animals; but it is not believed that the Department of Agriculture is justified in much other than educational work. The several States of the Union can do the necessary police work in the prevention of the spread of diseases of domestic animals within their own bounds. But very much must be left to the enlightened self-interest of the stock-owners themselves.

Quite recently this Department has published the result of its inves

tigations of bovine tuberculosis. These researches will be vigorously continued. Certain herds in the District of Columbia will be thoroughly inspected, and many of the animals which respond to the tuberculin test may be slaughtered, and for them, by the terms of the appropriation act, their owners may be partially remunerated. But there will be only a sufficient number of animals purchased by the Department to intelligently prosecute its scientific work and for purposes of illustration, description, and definition.

THE STERILIZATION OF MILK.

The sterilization of milk suspected of containing the bacilli of tuberculosis has been very thoroughly explained in a leaflet by Dr. D. E. Salmon, the chief of the Bureau. This leaflet was issued July 24, 1894, and given general circulation throughout the country. Pending the investigation of tuberculosis, and in view of the jeopardy to human health and life which some say is constantly evolved therefrom, the sterilization of milk may be made a shield and safeguard in every household.

The leaflet above referred to is as follows:

The sterilization of milk for children, now quite extensively practiced in order to destroy the injurious germs which it may contain, can be satisfactorily accomplished with very simple apparatus. The vessel containing the milk, which may be the bottle from which it is to be used, or any other suitable vessel, is placed inside of a larger vessel of metal, which contains the water. If a bottle, it is plugged with absorbent cotton, if this is at hand, or in its absence other clean cotton will answer. A small fruit jar, loosely covered, may be used instead of a bottle. The requirements are simply that the interior vessel shall be raised about half an inch above the bottom of the other, and that the water shall reach nearly or quite as high as the milk.

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The apparatus is then heated on a range or stove until the water reaches a temperature of 155° F., when it is removed from the heat and kept tightly covered for half an hour. The milk bottles are then taken out and kept in a cool place. The milk may be used any time within twenty-four hours. A temperature of 150° maintained for half an hour is sufficient to destroy any germs likely to be present in the milk, and it is found in practice that raising the temperature to 155° and then allowing it to stand in the heated water for half an hour insures the proper temperature for the required time. The temperature should not be raised above 155°, otherwise the taste and quality of the milk will be impaired.

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