84 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



liiitted, tlitit there are liei-ds ol" Lowlaud breeds wliicli, with no lack 

 of good manageiiieut, produce milk that will not imitoiiiily, nor even 

 in the average case, come up to the requirements of the standards 

 commonly lixed for market milk. The owner of such a herd is, 

 however, not driven to tlie dire necessity of destroying the herd; 

 all he has to do is to introduce the necessary proportion of animals, 

 the quality of whose milk is such as to bring the mixed herd's milk 

 up to the normal limit ; and to accomplish this change, it is not nec- 

 essary for him even to reject the breed he prefers, because there have 

 been developed in large numbers, strains of the same breed that are 

 producing milk considerably above the minimum limits in composi- 

 tion, commonly adopted. 



It is, possibly, deserving of mention in this connection, that there 

 is one cause of variation in milk quality whereby the solids-not-fat 

 of milk are abnormally reduced in quantity, over which the dairyman 

 has no control, and against which he cannot guard, where the method 

 of pasturage enters largely into his system of management. It is 

 generally known, that in prolonged dry seasons, where the i)asture 

 becomes very short and scanty, the tendency is for the solids-not-fats 

 to fall from one-fourth to one-half per cent, below the quantity 

 normal to the animal, and sometimes the diminution of these con- 

 stituents is even greater. It may be urged that the dairyman can, 

 by the introduction of food from other sources, keep up both the 

 milk flow and the milk composition; but it is fair to recognize that 

 farm management is necessarily complex, and that the control of the 

 food supply, in the manner just indicated, is one involved with great 

 difficulty, and not always practicable. On the other hand, the con- 

 ditions of prolonged drought, sufficient to produce the effects just 

 described, are quite rare, and the conditions of milk production dur- 

 ing these rare periods could be accepted as the general basis of 

 limitation of milk composition, only at a disadvantage to the con- 

 sumer that must extend through periods of time manifold longer 

 than those during which these abnormal cliumtic conditions pre- 

 vail. It seems, therefore, to be a wiser policy to trust to the judg- 

 ment of experts examining the milk supply, and of executive officers 

 charged with the enforcement of the law, to recognize the presence 

 of these conditions, to modify their recommendations, and to avoid 

 the carrying of the law beyond its true intent, rather than to inflict 

 upon the consuming public a continuous disadvantage, because of the 

 rare occurrence of such climatic conditiims. 



The standards of composition for milk, incorporated in the pres- 

 ent act, are those proclaimed by the Secretary of Agriculture, under 

 authority of Congress, and upon the recommendation of a board of 

 experts who carefully studied the limits established by law in the 

 several states and municipalities of the Union, and also the com- 

 position of market milk throughout the United States. From our 

 knowledge of milk produced in Pennsylvania, a knowledge secured 

 by the milk examinations made by this Bureau through past years, 

 together with those made by other public agencies, it-is established 

 that the limits adopted are safely applicable to Pennsylvania market 

 milk. 



The new act differs from the act of 11)09, also, in fixing 18 per cent. 

 of milk fat as the minimum limit for cream, whereas the earlier act 

 set 15 per cent, as the minimum limit. This change brings the State 



