340 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



our milk had an oyster in it." We have all heard stories regard- 

 ing the tabooed practice of milk men's stopping at streams to 

 water milk, and in adding from this source, admitting the tell- 

 tale little fish or frogs. But this was the first time 1 have ever 

 heard it intimated that milk had been diluted with sea water and 

 was therefore likely to contain numbers of the family Crustacea. 

 The oyster in question, I must explain in justice to the milkman, 

 afterwards proved to be a small cracker. No doubt it had been 

 part of the driver's breakfast or midnight lunch and had tum- 

 bled into the milk bottle which was afterwards filled with milk 

 and delivered to the consumer making the complaint. In this 

 fusillade the driver could hardly hope to escape unscathed, and 

 many uncomplimentary things were said of him : — "We do not 

 like him," "He smokes, chews, swears at his horse, is uncivil 

 and unobliging; he comes too early, comes too late, makes too 

 much noise, does not leave the right amount of milk, gives our 

 neighbor better milk, does not seem to know the amount of milk 

 w^e want unless we put out bottles and tickets, knew we had com- 

 pany and did not leave an extra pint." "I live on the eighth 

 floor and take a pint a day and wanted a quart this morning and 

 was only left a pint; can you recommend another milkman?" 

 All these and many more ! 



For these grievances the consumer blames the Health Depart- 

 ment and the driver who leaves the milk at her door. The 

 driver in turn must find some excuse and he has been known to 

 implicate the weather and the producer. The producer passes 

 on the blame to the hired man. He, if he must get satisfaction, 

 takes it out of the innocent cow, which, in the first place, gave 

 it pure as was intended by nature, gave it patiently, willingly, 

 and just as much of it as she could. 



It can hardly be successfully argued that milk from the 

 healthy cow, by whatever adjective best described when it 

 reaches the consumer, be it certified, inspected, high-grade mar- 

 ket, low-grade market, grade A, B, C, or D, was not a milk 

 which met the exacting requirements of "Certified" when the 

 cow gave it. If it has fallen below that high standard, let us 

 not blame the cow, but man and conditions over which he has 

 almost complete control. 



All this is said to point to you men who are left behind the 

 cows, as the chief factors to be interested if better milk is ever 



