l82 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



Dr. Wright. May I say a word in regard to this ques- 

 tion ? I am not a member of this Board or connected with it, 

 but I have been connected with a board of health for a good 

 many years, and I want to say that the change of feeUng 

 that has occurred among milk consumers in the last eight 

 or ten years is truly wonderful. I believe that this question 

 is largely going to settle itself. There are people now that 

 are willing to pay a good fair price, and a price that will pay 

 the farmer, if they can be assured that the milk is clean and 

 of a really good quality. Of course, we examine more or less 

 milk that comes into this city as to quality, but of its cleanliness 

 we are not always sure. I noticed that the speaker passed over 

 the bacterial side of the question very Hghtly. I assume that 

 he takes comparatively little stock of bacterial count in milk, 

 but I believe that the milk producer and the milk dealer can 

 get a good fair price for their milk if they will hold the quality 

 rigidly up to a high standard. I believe that the men who 

 are now in the market doing that thing, and the men who are 

 going to get in early, are the men that are going to get in on 

 the ground floor and get a decided advantage in the near future 

 over those who do not deliver clean, wholesome milk. I think 

 that the farmers of the state of Connecticut have largely got 

 this matter in their own hands. The farmers constitute a 

 majority of the legislators of the state. They are the men 

 who are controlling our legislature to a very large degree, and 

 I wish they would make a state standard for milk. At the 

 present time, we have no state standard. A man outside of the 

 city of New Haven can make any kind of milk he sees fit, and 

 can sell it anywhere he is allowed to. If a milkman goes 

 outside, and he is a man that is responsible, the farmer can 

 ship his milk around from one to the other until it is practically 

 impossible to trace it, and in that way some of it may. get in. 

 We have had that happen quite often. The point I want to 

 make about it is though, that the matter is largely in the hands 

 of the farmers themselves, who control our legislation, and I 



