150 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



to settle. The manure and bedding must be removed an equal 

 time before milking. Feeding must be done long enough before 

 milking to allow all dust from the hay to settle. The cow's 

 udder must be wiped off with a moist cloth. The walls of the 

 stall must be kept swept down, so as to keep them free from 

 cobwebs, and the milker should wear a special suit for his work, 

 and should work with clean hands. If a special stall can be 

 used for the milking so much the better, but even without it 

 milk can be obtained which is free from visible dirt. As a fur- 

 ther precaution a milk pail with a small mouth, and provided 

 with a fine cloth or cotton strainer, should always be used. 

 This should prevent the entrance of visible dirt into the milk, 

 but it is to be remembered that it does not replace cleanliness in 

 animal, milker or stall, as it will not remove bacterial dirt and 

 that part of visible dirt that may be taken into solution by the 

 milk. 



* 



When the milk has been taken into the milk room the chances 

 of dirt entering it are still present. Dust, loaded with acid 

 forming bacteria, is here to be encountered, and the additional 

 danger from flies here enters. The fly is bred in filth, and finds 

 all kinds of filth and clean foods equally to its liking. He may 

 come from feeding on the manure pile directly to feed upon the 

 milk in the milk room, and, while without his presence the 

 chance of contamination of the milk by intestinal and disease 

 bacteria should be but slight, in the absence of a sick worker, 

 yet his presence causes all of the factors present in the stall to 

 appear in the milk room. The returned milk bottles and cans 

 also ofifer chances for contamination by the bacteria that may 

 have been returned in them. j\Iany epidemics of disease have 

 been traced to the use of returned bottles thus contaminated. 



Scrupulous cleanliness, as scrupulous as in any room of our 

 homes, is needed in the milk room, both in the room itself and 

 in all of the dishes, cans and bottles used there. The room 

 should be kept as clean and sweet as any other room in the 

 house. It should be screened so that flies cannot fiind entrance. 

 The cans and bottles should be sterilized, if possible, before 

 being used ; but should, at any rate, be scalded out before such 

 use. The workers should keep their persons and clothes as 

 clean as in the dining room. If this is done there will be no 

 chance for visible dirt to enter the milk during its preparation 

 for the market, and but little chance for the entrance of bac- 



