530 BOAT?D OF AGRICULTURE. 



Before starting with tlie paper, I want to say tliat tlie care of milk 

 depends largely upon tlie bacteriology of milk. It is a bacteriological sub- 

 ject. This subject has been treated very fully by Professor Dennis last 

 night, and you have seen some of the lantern slides. I have some of the 

 charts here that represent identically the same thing, or some process of 

 the same kind as you saw last night. 



THE HANDLING AND CARE OP MILK. 



PROFESSOR OSCAR ERF, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS. 



Some one has said: "The dinner has been the potent force of American 

 progress." If this is true, the dairyman ought to do all in his power to 

 stimulate this progress by furnishing a good, wholesome supply of dairy 

 products. Of course, naturally, we must begin the improvement with the 

 milk. 



You doubtless know that the great .problem that is confronting the 

 Board of Health Commissioners of our large cities today is the question 

 of pure milk supplj'. The fraudulent methods that are resorted to by some 

 of our dealers and dairymen, with the extravagant use of preservatives 

 to cover up their filthy manner of handling milk, renders it almost dan- 

 gerous and unfit for human consumption. It is impossible for butter and 

 cheese-makers to make a good product out of preserved or embalmed 

 milk, and sooner or later wherever this material is used it injures the 

 dairy business. I, therefore, believe it to be every dairyman's duty to 

 protest against the use of preservatives in milk, and to join with the 

 public in securing legislation that Avill subjugate this disreputable prac- 

 tice. I sometimes think that too much is said about tainted milk and 

 too little about tainted men. 



The care of milk for the supply of butter and cheese stands first in 

 importance in the matter of producing a fine product, for certainly with- 

 out pure, untainted milk to begin with we can not have a fine quality of 

 cheese or butter. In years gone by, when dairymen kept fewer cows 

 and these, during the dairy season, were fed nothing but the native grass 

 and were milked in the open air, probably in some pasture or grassy 

 spot, a much purer quality of milk was prodiiced than is now delivered at 

 the factories or shipped to the cities. Now, when the herds are larger 

 and when the flow of milk is increased by various foods, some of which 

 produce objectionable flavors, the dairyman must exercise greater care in 

 producing milk. In its primitive state the milk of the cow was intended 

 to nourish the young, and nature has made wise provisions for transfer- 

 ing the milk to serve its functions under the most sanitary conditions. Man 



