1(14 Ninth Annual Report op the 



I cannot find in the Agricultural Law any general prohibition 

 against adulterations in butter and cheese, although there is 

 an express provision to that effect in the case of milk. Section 

 26 seems to forbid the use of acids or other deleterious sub- 

 stance only in the case of imitation butter. Though if I err in 

 this and the application of the section be general, the provision 

 under review is unnecessary so far as public health is involved. 

 Section 407 of the Penal Code forbids the sale of adulterated 

 food only (except in certain specified cases) when made without 

 disclosing or informing the purchaser of the adulteration. It 

 will be seen, therefore, that the sale of adulterated butter or 

 cheese is not necessarily an offense, except so far as made such 

 by the statutory enactment under review. That enactment does 

 not make the introduction of a foreign substance an adultera- 

 tion, nor an adulteration illegal, except in the case of a preserv- 

 ative. How, then, can it be said that the statute is intended 

 to prevent adulteration or the introduction of foreign substance 

 into butter or cheese when the sole test of criminality under it 

 is that the substance is introduced for the object or with the 

 effect of preserving butter or cheese? If the foreign substance 

 has not this effect, no matter how deleterious it may be, the use 

 of it does not violate this provision. It is plain, therefore, that 

 this statute is solely aimed at the preservation of dairy prod- 

 ucts by the use of other substances than salt, sugar and spirit- 

 uous liquor. Why the use of salt is forbidden in milk, sugar 

 in butter and cheese, and particularly why that of liquor is per- 

 mitted in club or fancy cheese and forbidden in other cheese it 

 is difficult to understand on the theory that its object was the 

 protection of the public health. The preservation of food and 

 the arrest of its tendency to decay is certainly a proper and law- 

 ful object in itself. It is a work in which man has been engaged 

 to some extent from earliest history. It is the subject of large 

 industries in this country, and the products of those industries 

 are generally used by the community and are lawful objects of 

 manufacture and sale. The industry has grown to an enor- 

 mous extent. These are matters of common knowledge. There 



