Education of the Farmeb. 459 



last two years, is the kind we should put on the market. It is the 

 kind that will increase home consumption so rapidly that in a 

 short time we shall not hear anything about that surplus of milk 

 and consequent low price in summer. To bring about this very 

 desirable condition will necessitate some radical changes in meth- 

 ods of doing business. Working at every point to see how cheaply 

 a thing can be done without regard to the resulting product, must 

 be stopped, as it is the prime cause of very much of the poor butter 

 and cheese. In those cases where the farmer is educated up to the 

 necessity of keeping everything about his dairy in good sanitary 

 condition, and takes the milk to a cheese-maker who is up-to-date in 

 his methods of handling the milk and manufacturing the cheese, 

 I doubt whether there can be very much improvement, except in 

 this way. The scientist by finding how adverse conditions can be 

 better controlled, and by putting the producer in a way to under- 

 stand facts which at the present time are not well understood, may 

 help him to make a more uniform product. Where the radical 

 change must come, if the facts as shown by our work at the Geneva 

 station prove true in commercial work, and there is no possible rea- 

 son why they should not that I can see, is in a better control 

 of temperature in the curing-rooms. The temperature in most 

 cheese factory curing-rooms follows outside conditions very closely, 

 and during the hot summer months the cheeses are exposed to a 

 range of anywhere from 70° to 90° F. You will rememer that 

 our experience was that all the cheese in the experiment at the 

 Station, when the temperature was 70° F. and above, did not hold 

 their flavor. I expect that quite a good many people will say, 

 you might obtain the results you report in the small way you have 

 been working, but it is not practical for commercial purposes. 

 To meet this objection and do it in a way to give everyone an 

 opportunity to study its workings, I believe the only way is to ask 

 the legislature of the State to give the Commissioner of Agricul- 

 ture a sum of money sufficient to test this work in a commercial 

 way. I shall not take the time to formulate a plan for doing the 

 work, but if it meets with your approval I hope a suitable resolu- 

 tion will be introduced and passed before we adjourn, asking the 

 legislature to provide the necessary funds to prove the advisability 

 of this work. 



We must not expect to work radical reforms in one year, and 

 I am so thoroughly convinced of the practicability of this work 

 that I believe the sooner we begin the agitation of the question 

 the better it will be for the dairy interests of the State. 



