iring
from the first, stimulating and aiding all other Government officers at
home and abroad whose official duties enabled them to participate in the
work. The total trade in hog products with Europe in May, 1892, amounted
to 82,000,000 pounds, against 46,900,000 in the same month of 1891; in
June, 1892, the export aggregated 85,700,000 pounds, against 46,500,000
pounds in the same month of the previous year; in July there was
an increase of 41 per cent and in August of 55 per cent over the
corresponding months of 1891. Over 40,000,000 pounds of inspected
pork have been exported since the law was put into operation, and a
comparison of the four months of May, June, July, and August, 1892, with
the same months of 1891 shows an increase in the number of pounds of
our export of pork products of 62 per cent and an increase in value of
66-1/2 per cent. The exports of dressed beef increased from 137,900,000
pounds in 1889 to 220,500,000 pounds in 1892, or about 60 per cent.
During the past year there have been exported 394,607 head of live
cattle, as against 205,786 exported in 1889. This increased exportation
has been largely promoted by the inspection authorized by law and the
faithful efforts of the Secretary and his efficient subordinates to
make that inspection thorough and to carefully exclude from all cargoes
diseased or suspected cattle. The requirement of the English regulations
that live cattle arriving from the United States must be slaughtered
at the docks had its origin in the claim that pleuro-pneumonia existed
among American cattle and that the existence of the disease could only
certainly be determined by _post mortem_ inspection.

The Department of Agriculture has labored with great energy and
faithfulness to extirpate this disease, and on the 26th day of September
last a public announcement was made by the Secretary that the disease
no longer existed anywhere within the United States. He is entirely
satisfied after the most searching inquiry that this statement was
justified, and that by a continuance of the inspection and quarantine
now required of cattle brought into this country the disease can be
prevented from again getting any foothold. The value to the cattle
industry of the United States of this achievement can hardly be
estimated. We can not, perhaps, at once insist that this evidence shall
be accepted as satisfactory by other countries; but if the present
exemption from the disease is maintained a