r. Stoddard sold an animal to Mr. Woodis of New Braintree.
He had twenty-three fine cows. It ruined his herd utterly. Seven or
eight animals died before the commissioners got there. Mr. L. Stoddard
also sold a yoke of cattle to Mr. Olmstead, one of his neighbors, who
had a very good herd. They stayed only five days in his hands, when
they passed over to Mr. Doane. In these five days they had so infected
his herd that it was one of the most severe instances of disease that we
have had. One third were condemned, and another third were passed over
as sound, whether they were so, or not. They did not appear to be
diseased. The cattle that were passed from Mr. Stoddard through Mr.
Olmstead to Mr. Doane, were loaned by Mr. D. to go to a moving of a
building from Oakham to New Braintree. They were put in with twenty-two
yoke of cattle, and employed a day and a half. It has since been proved
that the whole of these cattle took the contagion. They belonged to
eleven different herds, and of course, each of these herds formed a
focus from which the disease spread. Now, in these two ways the disease
has spread in different directions.

"But, when the commissioners first commenced, they had no idea that the
disease extended further than those herds in which there were animals
sick. Hence, their ideas and the ideas of those who petitioned for the
law, did not extend at all to so large a number of herds as have since
been proved to be diseased, because they only judged of those who
manifested disease. As soon as we began in that circle, we found a
second circle of infection, and another outside of that; and by that
time it had branched off in various directions to various towns. It
assumed such proportions that it was very evident that the commissioners
had not the funds to perform the operations required by the law. The law
confines the commissioners to one operation,--killing and burying. No
discretionary power is given at all. The commissioners became entirely
dissatisfied with that condition of things, because other measures
besides merely killing and burying, are quite as necessary and
important. When they arrived at that point and discovered to what extent
the infection had spread, they stopped killing the herds, and I believe
there has not been a herd killed for twenty days.

"The policy was then changed to circumscribing the disease, by isolating
the herds just as fast as possible and as surely as possible. A man's
herd has b