HOW CAN WE COMPETE WITH THE WEST IN DAIRYING. 51 



or in combination with neighbors, the manufacture of certain 

 dairy specialties, such as special brands of cheese, of certified 

 milk, or things of like character. I doubt whether, for 

 instance, the certified milk business is likely to be overdone in 

 the vicinity of Boston for many years. Many of the foreign 

 cheeses, for which fancy prices are paid, may be closely imitated 

 on this side of the water. Indeed, a few New York and Wis- 

 consin factories are to-day making several cheeses practically 

 identical with the imported article. 



(e) Character of products , i. e., quality. The best of cows, 

 be they fed ever so well, their milk sold as such or made into 

 butter, cheese or what not, avail not in the struggle to meet 

 Western competition if the quality of the final product be infe- 

 rior. Our Western cousins have made rapid strides in this 

 respect in recent years. The advantages already enumerated, 

 particularly the educational ones, have been important factors 

 in this advancement. The superiority of New England dairy 

 products no longer stands unquestioned. It remains, therefore, 

 for us to put forth every effort to improve what is already good. 

 We must gild refined gold — the lily shall be painted. How is 

 this to be brought about ? I know of no one thing more potent 

 for ill in this matter than the bacterial content of the milk fur- 

 nished by the different patrons of a creamery, cheese factory 

 or milk car. Other considerations such as character of feed, 

 stage of lactation, method of handling, etc., enter in to affect 

 the quality of the product, factors which would be well worth 

 our attention did time and space permit. I should distinctly 

 fail in my duty, however, if I neglected to refer to the vital 

 relation of the germ content of milk to its usefulness in dairy 

 operations. 



I need not tell this audience the now trite story of the bac- 

 terium, how its growth and multiplication in milk causes the 

 familiar souring, how sometimes desirable aromas, sometimes 

 disagreeable flavors are developed by its growth, how certain 

 diseases may be at times communicated through its presence in 

 the milk. It is proved beyond doubt that the control of the 

 bacterial content of milk is the great desideratum of modern 

 dairy management. Exclusion, destruction and retardation 

 should be the watch-words. Keep them out, kill them out, 

 check their growth ! How may this be most certainly yet 

 simply accomplished ? Cleanliness and sanitation tend to keep 

 them out ; live steam, sunlight, sterilisation, pasteurization, 

 disinfection, kill them out ; and refrigeration serves best to 

 check their growth. In proportion as New England dairymen 

 working privately or associated with others keep their stock, 

 barns and feeds clean and healthy ; in proportion to their free 

 use of live steam on dairy apparatus and utensils, thesunuiness 



