Henry Baird Favill, AB, MD, LL.D., 1860-1916, a ... - University Library

AGRICULTURE AND DAIRYING 477
enterprise, and individuals who can not see without pressure
the importance of the matter should be made to feel it by
ever>^ penalty, legal or moral, that the public can apply.
The most important factor in determining the reliability
of this transaction is the integrity which includes the capacity
of the official tester. The accredited veterinary who can
be bought or influenced is worthy of not the slightest confidence
in what he presents. The business is full of instances
of conscientious testers who are not acceptable because of
their unflinching adherence to facts. It is, of course,
equally full of instances of men who are preferred for these
purposes because they will compromise with the facts.
There is but one solution to this, and that is the determination
by the management as to who are capable and
honest men and the insistence that all parties shall measure
up to the standard set.
So important is this factor, that I am disposed to think
that the transaction should be made to turn upon this test
and the man who makes it. I consequently question the
advisability of selling cattle subject to retest in ninety days,
or any similar period.
There should be a limit to the liability of a seller. If
he is presenting cattle which he believes to be sound, backed
by veterinary examination which he and all others believe
to be honest, the liability should terminate at that point,
rather than be dependent upon subsequent retest. The
guarantee for a period of time tends to lessen the vital importance
of the primary test, and I believe the importance of
the primary- test
should be emphasized to its fullest extent.
In case fraud can be shown as having entered into the
primary test, the buyer has as full legal recourse as though
there were an extended guarantee, but it has seemed to me
that the extended guarantee is nothing but an advertising
makeweight and that it has not at bottom sufficient justice
to make it a primar\^ stipulation, as a rule, in the sale.
When the management of a sale takes an unequivocal