540 BOARD OF AGRICn/iURE. 



Mr. Billingsley: You mean realize any effect. After all, doesn't it 

 just so far, I don't care bow small amount, impair digestion? People 

 are ignorant of what quantity to use in milk, and they are using some- 

 thing, the effects of which they are not familiar with at all, and now, 

 then, who is to set the limit to this as to what quantity should be used? 



Professor Erf: They ought not to use it at all. 



Mr. Billingsley: Yes, that is right. 



Professor Erf: That is what I brought out, but if I had said that this 

 material renders milk absolutely indigestible, some experimenter might 

 say: "We are using it, and we find this experiment does not hurt any- 

 thing in small quantities." That is fact; I have given you the facts. Now, 

 I don't want you to follow this method. You don't know how many of the 

 dairymen do use it, and it is a hard matter to determine; but we want to 

 get rid of the matter entirely. 



Mr. Drischel: Under the circumstances, would you approve of a com- 

 mercial starter in cream or let nature take its course? 



The President: That is not a foreign substance. 



Mr. Drischel: A good many of the butter-makers use a commercial 

 starter. It is a foreign substance. 



The President: No, it is really an ingredient of milk. A commercial 

 starter is a preparation from milk. It is a bacteria, but not a harmful one. 



Mr. Drischel: What would you call a common buttermilk starter? 



The President: A man could not live without the aid of bacteria. 



Professor Erf: I want to say that bacteria is not a substance. It is 

 numerous lives. A starter is not an adulterant. A common buttermilk 

 starter, is one that supplies the right kind of bacteria to the milk to 

 ripen it. 



Mr. Newsom: There is another feature of this that ought to be brought 

 out, and that is with reference to the fact that we do not know who will 

 use this milk, and if we put in the smallest quantity of preservative it 

 would not hurt a well person; but if we took that milk to a sick person, the 

 smallest quantity would hurt that sick person just so much, and that small 

 amount, whatever it might be, might be the cause of death. I think there 

 ought to be a law to Iceep it all out. 1 might take some of it, and it would 

 not hurt me at all, but some person might take some of it, and they were 

 sick, and it would hurt them. 



