T.B. TESTING OF COWS

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23745, 17 September 1942, Page 6

T.B. TESTING OF COWS

Sir,—lnspectors are going round tuberculin-testing cows at registered dairies for the town supply of milk. What about the dairies that supply milk under a special licence from February to October 1? Other farms with no licence at all sell milk to distributors. They get off without the costs of up-to-date dairies, and without testing. Would the Department of Agriculture inform me if the tuberculintesting of herds is compulsory?— Yours, etc., REG. DAIRY. September 14, 1942. [“At present the inspectors are not going about tuberculin-testing cows at registered dairies. What the inspectors are doing is making a routine clinical examination of cows in these dairies,” said the superintendent of the livestock division, Department of Agriculture, Mr E. E. Elphick, to whom the letter was referred. “The inspectors are, of course, empowered, if a cow shows any suspicious symptoms, to test any such cow; but they cannot enforce a general herd test. If there are farms without licences selling milk to distributors they are doing so illegally; and. if the writer can give us the name of any man committing this offence, we shall deal with him."]