BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 315 



a good standard of sanitation and produce high-grade, wholesome 

 butter, but tliis can not be said of creameries in general. Cream is 

 frequently shipped great distances to creameries to be made into but- 

 ter and is often received in such a filthy and putrid state as to be 

 thoroughly unfit to enter into the composition of a food product. 

 Investigations have shown that Gl per cent out of 1,554 lots of cream 

 received at creameries and buying stations was of third grade — that 

 is, dirty, decomposed, or very sour; that 91.5 per cent of 715 cream- 

 eries investigated were insanitary to a greater or less degree; and 

 that 72.6 per cent of these creameries did not pasteurize the milk so 

 as to destroy any disease germs that might be present. As disease- 

 producing germs are known to survive for long periods in butter 

 made from unpasteurized cream, and as butter is eaten in the raw 

 state, this product when made under such conditions as prevail in 

 the majority of creameries can not be said to be wholesome and free 

 from danger to human health. It is believed that a proper law, well 

 enforced, would remove nearly all of the bad conditions now existing. 

 A Federal law would, of course, apply only to products made for 

 interstate or export shipment or to establishments engaged in inter- 

 state or foreign commerce. Such a law should embody the following 

 requirements : 



(1) That a proper standard of sanitation in the plants be main- 

 tained. 



(2) Compulsory pasteurization of all cream. 



(3) The power should be given to inspect the cream received at 

 such establishments and to supervise the processes of manufacture, 

 as well as to inspect the finished product and to condemn and destroy 

 for food purposes any milk, cream, or butter found to be unwhole- 

 some or unfit for human food. 



(4) Low-grade cream which is neutralized, bloAvn, or otherwise 

 renovated should be required to be handled in a separate plant and 

 the butter made from such cream labeled so as to indicate that it is 

 made from renovated cream ; in other words, it should be handled in 

 the same manner as renovated butter. 



(5) The stamp of approval of the United States Government 

 should be required upon all cases before any transportation company 

 is allowed to accept them for interstate or export shipment. 



(G) Thci interstate shipment for food purposes of cream or other 

 dairy products that arc unwholesome or unfit for human food should 

 be prohibited. 



Some of tlicse provisions could be modeled after the present meat- 

 inspection law. Such a law would, of course, require an adequate 

 appropriation for the expense of carrying out its provisions. 



Even though Congress may not be ready to establish a compre- 

 hensive system of inspection, much good could be accomplished by a 

 law regulating the interstate shipment of cream a«d other dairy 

 products so as to prevent interstate traffic in unwholesome pi oJ nets. 



The law of May 0, 11)0-2, under which the inspection of renovaud 

 or process butter and of factories engaged in the preparation of this 

 product is carried on, is inadequate and should be amended or super- 

 seded by a law containing provisions similar to those of the meat- 

 inspection law, so far as they may be applicable, but retaining the 

 revenue feature of the present law. Some improvement has been 



