202 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



test both as a matter of economy to the farmer in having healthy 

 animals and as a health measure in rendering the product pure 

 and safe. The part which milk may play in the dissemination 

 of contagious diseases is made more certain every year, as is the 

 deleterious influence of common, dirty milk reeking with bac- 

 teria, even though skeptics may say that some of these bacteria 

 are harmless. With increasing recognition of these facts a gen- 

 eral improvement is being made all along the line; many dairy 

 progressives are taking advanced sanitary steps and usually they 

 are well satisfied with the results. "1 do not see how I could 

 have done business under old conditions," said a farmer to me 

 not long since, who had recently put additional windows into 

 his stable, whitewashed it and made other improvements. "The 

 satisfaction of having a pleasant, bright, clean place where I 

 must spend much of my time during the winter has amply paid 

 me for the changes I have made," was the evidence of another. 

 But there still remains a little of the reactionary influence which 

 sees no advantage in modern progress. Sometimes the dairy 

 standpatter gets back at the scientific world by claiming that it 

 is under the domination of a thirty million dollar pasteurizer 

 trust, or other similarly foolish charge. We still occasionally 

 hear of farmers going out of business because they cannot aflford 

 the expensive ( ?) changes ordered by city boards of health, al- 

 though the cost of the change from producing dirty milk to 

 clean milk, from dangerous milk to safe milk, is not an expensive 

 proposition and has been greatly exaggerated. "There will be 

 a milk famine in this city," said some of the producers for the 

 District of Columbia market, "if you require all cows producing 

 milk to be tuberculin tested," but very few persons take such 

 statements seriously. 



Finally, and in conclusion, I would say, that if I have taken a 

 more pessimistic view of the business acumen of the average 

 milk producers than will make this address popular, I am sorry. 

 I have tried to speak the truth fearlessly and I think that facts 

 will warrant every assertion I have made. Sometimes a word 

 of friendly suggestion or even criticism, may be more useful in 

 the long run than gushing flattery or abusing the other fellow. 

 I believe a spirit of progress is in the air and that conditions are 

 changing for the better, especially in this State. With such in- 

 structors as are found in the Agricultural College and Experi- 



