^28 ' ANNUAL. REtORt OF THfS Oft. i)oc. 



as never before. It is only a few short years since the science of 

 bacteriology was applied to the milk supply of cities, and since then 

 we have really given this subject of milk much serious thought. 

 When I was a boy on the farm, milk was ,milk and one farmers' milk 

 was considered just as good as anothers'. Sometimes it was dirty, 

 but no special attention was paid to it. Now, since we know more 

 about bacteriology, since we know more about the cau^e of disease, 

 since we know that poisonous toxins develop in dirty milk and pro- 

 duce disease and death, we are giving more attention to these 

 matters. 



The question of sanitation, then, is one that is uppermost in the 

 minds of people to-day. No science has made more rapid progress 

 during the last few years than this. The entire civilized world is 

 throwing itself into the fight against unnecessary and shameful loss 

 of life resulting from unsanitary conditions, from impure milk, and 

 from all impure food supplies. It is said today that national intel- 

 ligence may be known by a given nation's sanitation. General condi- 

 tions being the same, the city having the best milk has by far the 

 lowest death rate. One city in our own country reduced the death 

 rate more than one half through a better milk supply. The city of 

 Copenhagen, Denmark, which once had the reputation of a high death 

 rate, now has one of the lowest in the world, for the same reason. 



The demand is made that the dairymen of this country improve 

 their methods, adopt new standards, and meet new demands. Some 

 of the sanitary theories may be overdrawn and some unfair demands 

 may sometimes be made upon producers, but there is one thing certain, 

 that the dairymen of Pennsylvania and of every other state will have 

 to deal with this reform movement, and how he can best do it is the 

 problem we have before us here to-day. I might say here, that the 

 demand is also made, and rightly, that the consumer do his part 

 toward bringing about an improvement in the product which he has 

 on his table daily. If I were to pass judgment on the producer and 

 consumer, I am inclined to think I would give the producer the credit 

 for having advanced farthest in doing his part in the fight for pure 

 milk. The consumer needs to be educated to take proper care of milk 

 when it reaches his door. Unfortunately, the law stops at the con- 

 sumer's door, but it follows the ])roducer all the way from the cow 

 to the kitchen. If we should examine conditions to-day, we should 

 find many a filthy ice-box that was ten times worse than the dairy- 

 man's milk house. The consumer needs to look up the source of his 

 supply and to pay the dairyman a living price when the product is 

 delivered to him in good condition, and not be looking for the cheap- 

 est milk he can buy. The average consumer is surprisingly ignorant 

 concerning his milk supply. He not only does not realize the im- 

 portance of having pure milk, but is ignorant concerning its greater 

 cost. Three-fourths of the milk consumers of this country have never 

 looked up the source of their supplies or seen any account of it. 

 The consumer has often been held up in a favorable light by those who 

 have agitated the cause of better milk, but, as a matter of fact, the 

 milk dealer who rubs up against hira, knows that he is usually only 

 concerned with the lowest price at which he can buy milk that is 

 sweet and has lots of cream. Your dairymen all over the country 

 have speculated to their sorrow on the theory that people will pay 

 extra for milk that is clean. To prove this, if we investigate the milk 

 business in any large city, we shall find that the dirty, careless, price- 



