TARANAKI'S LEADING INDUSTRY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8024, 10 January 1906, Page 3

TARANAKI'S LEADING INDUSTRY.

THREATENED WITH DISEASE. I Abortion amongst tows is very prevalent just non in the Lords of Northern Taranaki. The diispgsp is seemingly getting a strong liold iu thu Province, and unless f&rmers take better preventive measures than they kavc been wont to, the output o£ butter in Taranaki next year will show a serious diminution. The Veterinarian Department is fully alive to the danger threatening tjje industry, and the local officers »rc doiii* in their power to arrest tlttf l>rogr«s and spread of the disease.

The trouble they have to conteu with, however, is the indifference and want of carc displayed by the farmers, who seem to bo more concerned about I getting everything they can from the land than about protecting their herds from the ravages of the insidious abortion microbe, and other ills to to which the source of Taranaki's wealth is subject. In the interest of the Province, it is the duty of the Government to at once prohibit tip exposure of diseased animals in public salcvards. In some instances it would lie difficult to prove for the purposes of prosecution that the owners really I kneiv the animals were diseased, but in very many cases sufficient proof for conviction would not be diilicult to procure, for it is a well-known fact that the farmers often use the saleyards to •'et rid of their diseased stock. In Southern Taranaki, too, contagious abortion is alarmingly prevalent. In some herds the animals incapacitated 1 by the disease represent between j thirty and fourty per cent, of the whole herds. Between thirty and forty cows in a herd of a hundred is a severe loss, aud one that few dairyy men can stand (or any length of tune,