!New York Agricultural Experiment 'Station. 769 



after straining into the final can. On all of these days except two, 

 the germ content of the milk at every stage was very low, the averages 

 for the entire period showing 57 bacteria per unit in the strippings, 

 161 for the milk in the pail, 426 after cooling, 443 when it reached 

 the dairy, and 474 after it had been strained. On two days there 

 was apparently some slight contamination of the milk during cool- 

 ing, but even then it had a germ content which was surprisingly 

 low. These figures were obtained when the dairy operations were 

 all conducted in the ordinary way and show that with reasonably 

 careful handling in a moderately clean stable and clean dairy room, 

 the germ content of the milk can be kept low without special elaborate 

 precautions. The small count throughout in this particular case 

 was due to the fact that the milk was furnished by one cow which 

 had a rather low udder content. 



It is common in discussions of the sanitary quality 



Conclusions of milk to use, as a general standard, a germ con- 

 tent of 10,000 germs per unit as insuring a milk 

 which is above suspicion of uncleanliness. In obtaining milk which 

 shall be safely below this 10,000 limit, it is the custom to spend 

 much labor in washing the cows and in keeping the interior of the 

 barn scrupulously clean. In all of the tests discussed in this bul- 

 letin, the germ content has been very low, seldom exceeding 1,000 

 germs per unit of which number about one-half are germs normally 

 present in the udders of the cows. 



This milk was produced under general conditions which appear 

 to be no better than those surrounding a considerable number of 

 ordinary city dairies, conditions which probably would not be accept- 

 able to any certified milk commission. Notwithstanding these facts 

 the extended study of the product indicates that in bacterial content 

 at least it is of the very highest quality. That milk of this quality 

 is not uniformly produced under such general conditions is illus- 

 trated by the fact that a local commercial dairy in which the methods 

 and equipment resemble those at the Experiment Station, except 

 that steam is not available for treating the utensils, quite uniformly 

 turns out a product with a content approximating 1,000,000 germs 

 per unit. 



What, then, is the difference between these two dairies? At the 

 Station the stable is kept cleaner, the cows are much cleaner, the 

 milkers are cleaner, and the utensils are thoroughly steamed. Appar- 

 ently the wide difference in the germ of the product from the two 

 dairies lies in the influence of one or more of these factors. The 

 important fact, which is being gradually recognized through these 

 and similar observations is that the production of a reasonably 

 clean milk with a low germ content will be a far simpler and less 

 expensive undertaking when the factors that really govern its pro- 

 duction are actually understood. 



49 



