4.46 Report of Ixspection Work of the 



takes his milk to the factory and it contains, by test, a certain 

 amount of fat. On this basis he receives a given price per hun- 

 dred for his milk, this price being fixed by the returns from the 

 butter sold. When he meets his neighbor who patronizes an 

 adjoining factory and whose milk tests the same as his and whose 

 butter is sold at the same price, but who gets more per hundred 

 for the milk, he condemns the test; when the trouble is not in 

 the method but in the way it is handled. A competent, honest 

 man with clean, correctly graduated glassware, will give uniform 

 results and we must have that combination to make the Babcock 

 fat test uniformly acceptable. 



Some states require the operators of the Babcock test to pass 

 an examination to determine whether they have sufBcient knowl- 

 edge of its workings to make a correct test. This is a proper 

 safeguard but it lacks in one particular, that it does not tell 

 whether the applicant for a position is an honest man, which is 

 quite as necessary as that he be intelligent enough to operate the 

 machine. In order to have the work of the Babcock test per- 

 fectly satisfactory it may be necessary for the State to have 

 careful inspection made at factories and creameries to know that 

 the work is done in an honest, careful way. 



The method followed at the Station in testing the bottles is 

 as follows: A graduated burette, which has been carefully tested 

 beforehand to insure its accuracy and uniformity at all points of 

 the scale, is filled with cleaned, dried mercury. If the bottle to 

 be tested has been used it is first thoroughly cleansed and dried; 

 but this is omitted with new, clean bottles. The bottle is then 

 placed under the burette and filled with mercury, first rapidly to 

 the o mark, then slowly, with repeated comparison with the 

 burette scale, to the top of the scale on the bottle. If the filling 

 does not show any irregularity in the neck of the bottle, and if 

 the variation is not over j\ of one per ct. in, the length of the 

 10 per ct. graduation of the bottle, it is passed as correct, as 

 the variation in the ordinary sample of milk would be so small 

 that it would be imposible to detect it. If the variation is Z^ 

 of 1 per ct. or over, the bottle is rejected and destroyed. The 



