New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 49 



The nature of these changes in sanitary conditions is extremely 

 suggestive. In a number of cases the tuberculin test was not renewed 

 within the year and the reacting animals removed; the cleaning 

 of the cows was generally omitted and in some cases their bodies 

 were allowed to become well coated with dried excrement; frequently 

 little or no attention was given to the cooling of the milk; cobwebs, 

 dust and general litter accumulated in the stables; the barnyards 

 often became choked and muddy from the accumulation of manure. 

 It should be noted that the failure to attend to these details saved 

 money or saved labor, which, under present conditions, amounts 

 to the same thing to the producer. It should also be noted that 

 with the exception of the tuberculin test there was no single day 

 when any one of the above conditions could have been said to have 

 changed from good to bad. The resulting bad conditions were the 

 cumulative result of a gradual lowering of the standard of doing 

 business. 



REASON FOR THIS CHANGE IN SANITARY CONDITIONS. 



In attempting to locate the cause for this marked deteroriation 

 in sanitary conditions it should be remembered that not a letter of 

 the city milk ordinances has been changed, that the form of milk 

 inspection has been continued, that the milk is still sold by the 

 producer to the retailer under the same form of contract which 

 was in force when advancement was most rapid. In short, every 

 external form and legal enactment which accompanied one of the 

 most striking recorded cases of municipal improvement of a milk 

 supply is still in force and yet within less than two years the sanitary 

 conditions surrounding the milk production have returned essentially 

 to the condition in which they were at the beginning of the original 

 improvement. 



Under the sliding scale contracts as explained on page 42 the 

 wholesale price of milk increased one-half cent per quart in passing 

 from " medium " to " good " or from " good " to " excellent." 

 As explained in Bulletin 337 the increased expense connected with 

 bringing a dairy ranking as " medium " into the " good " class was 

 ordinarily confined to that of the labor connected with keeping the 

 cows and their surroundings cleaner and in cooling the milk. As 

 the production of " medium " milk at 3 cents per quart was finan- 

 cially unprofitable and the expense attending the change to the 

 " good " grade amounted to less than one-half cent per quart the 

 dairies all came up to the " good " grade. In bringing the dairy 

 up to the " excellent " grade the farmer not only incurred an in- 

 creased expense for cleanliness and cooling of his milk but also 

 faced the problem of maintaining a herd which would pass the tuber- 

 culin test. The extent of loss in connection with reacting animals 

 was so uncertain that the majority of the farmers hesitated to take 

 the chance even with a margin of one-half cent per quart. So far 



4 



