268 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



pail, we next commenced our work with the bacteria, takings 

 samples from these same samples, and taking them to the 

 laboratory and studying the kinds of bacteria and the num- 

 bers that those samples contained. It has been known for 

 quite a while that certain species of bacteria, as has been re- 

 ferred to here this afternoon, causes the souring of the milk, 

 and it has also been known by some who are using these 

 covered pails that they tend to keep out certain numbers of 

 bacteria. We fully expected to find in the closed pails a 

 much smaller number of bacteria, and also that the milk so 

 taken would keep sweet much longer. The first of these 

 expectations we found to be true in general; that the number 

 of bacteria getting into the covered pail was quite a little 

 smaller in some cases than those getting into the open pail, 

 yet there were a good many times when there were fully as 

 many, and in many cases even more of them, getting into 

 the covered pail. That may have been due to the fact that 

 the cow was dirtier that morning than the other, or it may 

 have arisen from other sources. Imagine our surprise, how- 

 ever, on testing the time of curdling of the milk we found 

 that the samples taken from the closed pail which had much 

 less dirt than the other would curdle in a majority of cases 

 sooner than the others which were taken in the open pail. 

 There is something which is certainly not very practical at 

 present. It is just the opposite result from what we expected 

 to find. 



We then tried the same thing with the other sample, milk- 

 ing it into the open pail, and taking one sample and straining 

 it. We found also that the sample taken from the milk that 

 had been strained would curdle in almost every case sooner 

 than the one which was unstrained. 



Question. Did you sterilize the strainer? 



]Mr. Stocking. Yes, all of them were sterilized in steam. 

 That is a problem that we are working on just at present, to 

 find out why those samples which contained less dirt and a 



