Thirty-sixth Annual Convention 955 



lions of bacteria per cubic centimeter and large amounts of visible 

 sediment was transformed into milk containing a few hundred 

 bacteria and no sediment. One of these dairies near N^ewburgh, 

 N. Y., going into more detail in the matter of sanitary care and 

 in the use of disinfectants than other dairies, actually produces 

 milk which laboratory tests show contains most of the time no 

 bacteria. When the costs of these efforts was finally counted up 

 they made necessary the retail prices of from fifteen to twenty- 

 five cents a quart for the bottled milk, according to its richness in 

 butter fat and its sanitary excellence. 



In my own enthusiasm as a trained physician and bacteri- 

 ologist, I secured considerable financial backing and launched an 

 enterprise of the same sort. JN^one of the dairies mentioned ex- 

 celled my own in plan and equipment at that time and none 

 excelled mine in the sanitary results of the milk produced. I 

 was firm in my belief that every one of the sanitary details in 

 the long list of requirements was absolutely necessary to bring 

 about the net I'esult. 



My sanitary dairy buildings cost more than $30,000 and accom- 

 modated fifty milking cows. My milk retailed at 1-i cents per 

 quart and the capacity of the buildings was exhausted. There 

 was a very old barn a few hundred feet away from the sanitary 

 buildings provided with old stanchions and used to shelter excess 

 cows. One day I sent a man from the dairy house with a wheel- 

 barrow, sterile milk cans and a sterile milking pail to this old 

 barn to milk some of these cows. I made a test of this milk for 

 bacteria in my own laboratory located on the farm. It was on 

 that day that I learned a lesson in common sense dairy sanitation 

 which I have never forgotten and which has been the most im- 

 portant lesson in my entire experience as a student of the milk 

 industry. Although daily bacteria tests from my own sanitary 

 stables showed the bacteria count to l)e constantly very low, yet 

 on the first day that milk was taken from the old cow stable it 

 contained less bacteria than tlie milk from the sanitary barns on 

 that same day. 



For the sake of decency I had all the rough woodwork of the 

 stable encased with tar paper and the entire interior of the build- 

 ing whitewashed. The floor was patched up and I filled the 



