REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER. II 



The creameries in Maine that ship milk to Massachusetts 

 points came to the 191 5 Legislature, asking for a law permitting 

 the Department of Agriculture to inspect the places from which 

 they bought milk. The Legislature refused to grant this right, 

 even to a creature of its own making. It is, therefore, improba- 

 ble that they intend to grant it to a creature appointed by the 

 Boston Board of Health. This inspection causes continual 

 concern among the milk and cream producers of the state, be- 

 cause it is absolutely autocratic in its make-up and may deprive 

 them, for one week or one month, of the income of their herd, 

 upon the say-so of an irresponsible person who is not even a 

 citizen of the state. 



Steps ought to be taken to stop this annoyance of the farm- 

 ers of Maine by authorities outside of Maine. If Boston does 

 not want Maine milk, and cannot determine what Maine milk 

 is good and what is not when it gets to Boston, and what they 

 can accept and what reject at that point, it would be well for 

 them to get their milk from some other source. 



The Portland Board of Health, emulating the example set by 

 the Board of Health of the larger City of Boston, and very 

 ambitious to show how up-to-date and advanced in sanitary 

 science it is, has, in the past few years, cut many spectacular 

 figures in the attempted inspection of farm homes. It first, a 

 few years ago, passed an order that the milk of no cow that was 

 not first tuberculin tested should be sent to Portland. This 

 had the appearance of a collusion between the veterinarians of 

 Portland, who wanted the dollar they got for testing the cow, 

 and the Portland Board of Health. The milk producers who 

 supplied Portland at once organized and employed veterinarians 

 from Lewiston. The wonderful stir that they had created 

 collapsed and today no one hears anything from the Portland 

 Board of Health about milk from tuberculin tested cows. 



Today its great fad is that an inspector must be put out to 

 inspect barns. If this august body had taken pains to listen to 

 Dr. North, the eminent authority who looks after the sanitaiy 

 milk in New York City, deliver his address at the State Dairy 

 Conference, in December, at Lewiston, they would have learned 

 that the surroundings of the barn have little to do with sanitary 

 or insanitary milk. They did not hear Dr. North's lecture. 

 Evidently they preferred to remain in the limelight of forever 

 talking about sanitary milk and never obtaining it. 



