248 agriculture: of Maine;. 



small amount comes in from New Hampshire over the Boston & 

 Maine Railroad, and quite a good cream supply from the Solon 

 Creamery, Somerset coimty. There was no general complaint 

 made by the farmers against the test. They did complain, how- 

 ever, that they had to wait so long for their pay and on account 

 of the extra expense of paying for testing the healthy animals, 

 claiming that they did not receive enough for their milk and 

 cream to justify it. The commissioners were satisfied of the 

 fact and set themselves to work among the dealers and produ- 

 cers to raise the price, and succeeded in raising the price of milk 

 one cent per quart and butter fat two cents per pound. It re- 

 quires at least twenty thousand quarts of milk per day to supply 

 the market, which would make two hundred dollars per day 

 more to the farmers and seventy-three thousand dollars per 

 year. Now this is a large sum of money for the consumers to 

 pay for the purpose of having pure and healthful milk, yet we 

 have no complaint and good feeling seems to prevail among the 

 dealers, consumers and producers. The records show that five 

 thousand one hundred and thirty cows have been tested for the 

 Portland milk and cream supply, and up to date there have been 

 three hundred and ten cows condemned and destroyed, or about 

 six per cent, costing the State approximately seven thousand 

 and seven hundred dollars, making the total expense for the 

 investigation very nearly ten thousand two hundred dollars. 

 Now when we take into account the seventy-three thousand dol- 

 lars per year rise on the products, it does not seem to be a very 

 bad investment. 



Then, again, it is a good advertisement for our Maine dairy 

 producers. In the early spring Mr. Keating, the British consul, 

 was making inquiry in regard to the healthfulness of our Maine 

 dairy herds and remarked to one of the members of the Board 

 of Health that it would be very gratifying to him to be able to 

 report to his government that Maine was making every effort 

 to keep her dairy herds free from tuberculosis, and her dairy 

 products were yet free from suspicion. 



Your commissioners have received from the Bureau of Ani- 

 mal Industry at Washington twenty-seven hundred doses of 

 tuberculin free, on condition that a duplicate test shall be sent 

 back to the department in order that our government may know 

 what action Maine is taking in suppressing tuberculosis, and we 



