SCARED OFFICIALS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 8096, 27 September 1904, Page 2

SCARED OFFICIALS.

During the debate in the Hpuse on the subject of blackleg referred \fl above, Mr Taylor "got home" against the Agricultural Department on the subject of scare?. He asked, "What had become of the botfly, which the whole of the Veterinary Department were chasing with lancets, vaccination pots, and patent medicines •oine years ago. The Veterinary Department then declared that there was no greater, scourge to horses in the country, but for the last four years he had not heard any mention of the interesting insect." He went on -to relate that after spending a good deal of money the Department wrote to the United States Chief Government Entomologist, and asked him' wha,t in the United States was regarded as the premier 'remedy for botfly—the scourge of the horse. The reply was that the United .States, with 'a population of seventy millions o! * sensible people, looked' upon the' bot-fly 'as the pmk\ tow* «F to? fo*> .*#* thftt * Mfl§ |)jat had not bptrfly was not regarded as healthy., members' laughter, Mr Tayfer Mt«red *H«m fte was quoting Actual facti. Members, qt cpurte, coold not quite ifrftllow the implied reasoning that blackleg, which had proved fatal in 1300 caw* last year, might be » good thing for calves; but Mr Taylor explained that his objection was to panic measures, and, that possibly there might have been more economical methods of dealing with stock trouble* than those sometimes adopted in haste. And perhaps this philosophy is fairly sound, too.