REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER. I3 



parasites that bred both upon the brown-tail and gypsy moth 

 have nearly exterminated the brown-tail moth. 



Milk Inspection. 



The state milk inspection has been under the charge of C. W. 

 Wescott of Patten. In the inspection of milk there is a chaos 

 of inspection, and it is little wonder that the number of cows 

 have dropped off as they have in the last few years, and the 

 tendency today is for fewer cows, a large part of which is due 

 to this chaos. We have in the state today four distinct and 

 separate inspections of milk. First, there is the Department 

 of Agriculture, with its state-wide authority and its own stand- 

 ards. We next have the town or city inspection which does 

 not coordinate with the Department's inspection, except by 

 mutual agreement. We have also a Board of Health inspec- 

 tion, in places where they are sufficiently aspiring to attempt 

 this work, and, lastly, we have inspectors in this state from 

 the city of Boston who are forbidding the shippers to purchase 

 milk from this man, that man, or the other man, as suits their 

 taste or fancy, with no authority whatever, and with no recog- 

 nized standards, whatever. Now, is it any wonder, with these 

 various inspections, that the potato acreage and crop acreage 

 increases and the livestock industry languishes? It seems to 

 me that the legislature ought to coordinate all of the other 

 inspections, excepting that from Boston, and they ought to 

 forbid that. If Boston does not want our goods as they come 

 to their door, they can reject them w'hen they do come. They 

 do that to our potatoes. The State of Maine does not inspect 

 anything that comes from Boston. I believe in reciprocity. So 

 far as the Board of Health inspection is concerned, I^pprehend 

 that the extraordinary powers given them are not for the in- 

 spection of food products, but rather for the purposes of sup- 

 pressing epidemics, contagious and communicable diseases. 

 So far as milk is a source of contagion for such diseases as 

 typhoid, scarlet fever or diphtheria, I would give the Board of 

 Health unlimited power to constrain and condemn it until such 

 a time as it was fit for human food. It is hardly supposable, 

 however, that this unusual power would be given to a Board 

 of Health to rid a community of food that at most is only un- 



