DAIRY, SEED IMPROVEMENT, STOCK BREEDERS MEETINGS. I9I 



milk, all the milk of the mixture is liable to be contaminated by 

 the growth of the bacteria. This is in contradistinction to adul- 

 terated milk as the more pure milk added to the adulterated 

 sample the lower becomes a percentage of the adulterant. If 

 milk is added to water in increasing quantities the time will 

 come when the water is drowned by the milk. 



When one is dealing with a small community, where most 

 people either keep a cow or buy milk from a nearby neighbor, 

 the milk problem is not a burden upon the community, but when 

 communities become congested and cows no longer occupy 

 their places in the former back pastures the people are forced 

 to go elsewhere for their milk and every man ceases to be his 

 own milkman. It is under these latter conditions that the bac- 

 teria content of milk is a question to be considered by the com- 

 munity, owing to the ensuing commercialism of milk. 



Many cities in the United States, particularly the cities and 

 towns in Massachusetts, which consume so much milk pro- 

 duced in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, have passed 

 local regulations prohibiting the sale of milk of high bacteria 

 content. In order to comply with these regulations the milk 

 dealer is forced to resort to pasteurization, if his route is large 

 enough to warrant the expense, or, if not, to carefully select 

 his dairies, giving preference to those producing milk of a 

 low bacteria content, and, in general, these must be located in 

 towns near the place of consumption. 



The dealer who pasteurizes his milk, with proper apparatus, 

 may produce a product low in bacteria from raw material high 

 in bacteria, provided that the samples are not sour enough to 

 coagulate or curdle upon heating. He may buy milk high in 

 bacteria, mix it with milk low in bacteria, clarify, and pasteur- 

 ize the mixture and thereby produce a resulting product low in 

 bacteria. This procedure gives no incentive to the farmer to 

 produce a clean product, but, if the farmer is to be encouraged 

 in his production of clean milk, he must be paid proportionately 

 more for it. This does not seem to be possible under our pres- 

 ent commercial system of milk distribution, as it is not a com- 

 mercial necessity on the part of the dealer to obtain clean milk 

 low in bacteria, if the product is to be pasteurized. 



Milk is produced by the farmer and is, to a large measure, 

 consumed by the inhabitants of the cities. It has been said 



