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AN ACT

For the establishment of a Bureau of Animal Industry, to prevent the exportation of diseased cattle, and to provide means for the suppression and extirpation of pleuro-pneumonia and other contagious diseases among domestic animals.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Commissioner of Agriculture shall organize in his Department a Bureau of Animal Industry, and shall appoint a Chief thereof, who shall be a competent veterinary surgeon, and whose duty it shall be to investigate and report upon the condition of the domestic animals of the United States, their protection and use, and also inquire into and report the causes of contagious, infectious, and communicable diseases among them, and the means for the prevention and cure of the same, and to collect such information on these subjects as shall be valuable to the agricultural and commercial interests of the country; and the Commissioner of Agriculture is hereby authorized to employ a force sufficient for this purpose, not to exceed twenty persons at any one time. The salary of the Chief of said Bureau shall be three thousand dollars per annum; and the Commissioner shall appoint a clerk for said Bureau, with a salary of one thousand five hundred dollars per annum.

SEC. 2. That the Commissioner of Agriculture is authorized to appoint two competent agents, who shall be practical stock-raisers or experienced business men familiar with questions pertaining to commercial transactions in live stock, whose duty it shall be, under the instructions of the Commissioner of Agriculture, to examine and report upon the best methods of treating, transporting, and caring for animals, and the means to be adopted for the suppression and extirpation of contagious pleuro-pneumonia, and to provide against the spread of other dangerous contagious, infectious, and communicable diseases. The compensation of said agents shall be at the rate of ten dollars per diem, with all necessary expenses, while engaged in the actual performance of their duties under this act, when absent from their usual place of business or residence as such agent.

SEC. 3. That it shall be the duty of the Commissioner of Agriculture to prepare such rules and regulations as he may deem necessary for the speedy and effectual suppression and extirpation of said diseases, and to certify such rules and regulations to the executive authority of each State and Territory, and invite said authorities to co-operate in the execution and enforcement of this act. Whenever the plans and methods of the Commissioner of Agriculture shall be accepted by any State or Territory in which pleuro-pneumonia or other contagious, infectious, or communicable disease is declared to exist, or such State or Territory shall have adopted plans and methods for the suppression and extirpation of said diseases, and such plans and methods shall be accepted by the Commissioner of Agriculture, and whenever the governor of a State or other properly constituted authorities signify their readiness to co-operate for the extinction of any contagious,

55-000 0-71-2

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