Quebec and
British Columbia.

State aid.

The department of agriculture of the Dominion government renders aid to
agriculture in many ways, maintaining the experimental farms and various
effective organizations for assisting the live-stock, dairying and
fruit-growing industries, for testing the germination and purity of
agricultural seeds, and for developing the export trade in agricultural
and dairy produce. The health of animals branch, through which are
administered the laws relating to the contagious diseases of animals,
and the control of quarantine and inspection stations for imported
animals, undertakes also valuable experiments on the diseases of farm
livestock, including glanders in horses, tuberculosis in cattle, &c. The
policy of slaughtering horses reacting to the mallein test has been
successfully initiated by Canada, the returns for 1908 from all parts of
the country indicating a considerable decrease from the previous year in
the number of horses destroyed and the amount of compensation paid. A
disease of cattle in Nova Scotia, known as the Pictou cattle disease,
long treated as contagious, has now been demonstrated by the veterinary
officers of the department to be due to the ingestion of a weed, the
ragwort, _Senecio Jacobea_. Hog cholera or swine fever has been almost
eradicated. A laboratory is maintained for bacteriological and
pathological researches and for the preparation of preventive vaccines.
Canada is entirely free from rinderpest, pleuro-pneumonia and
foot-and-mouth disease.

The work of the live-stock branch is directed towards the improvement of
the stock-raising industry, and is carried on through the agencies of
expert teachers and stock judges, the systematic distribution of
pure-bred breeding stock, the yearly testing of pure-bred dairy herds,
the supervision of the accuracy of the registration of pure-bred animals
and the nationalization of live-stock records. The last two objects are
secured by act of the Dominion parliament passed in 1905. Under this act
a record committee, appointed annually by the pedigree stud, herd and
flock book associations of Canada, perform the duties of accepting the
entries of pure-bred animals for the respective pedigree registers, and
are provided with an office and with stationery and franking privileges
by the government. Pedigree certificates are certified as correct by an
officer of the department of agriculture, so that in Canada there exist