l88 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. IJan., 



it? I would like to know how you can do it. Here is a dairy 

 of cows that will give you for one month in the summer three 

 per cent. milk. Another month they will give you milk that 

 will measure up three and one-half per cent., and still another 

 month your milk will fall off to two and three-quarters. 

 Perhaps in some other month they will give you a four per 

 cent. milk. Here is another dairy where the cows on one day 

 w'ill give you a four per cent. milk, but somebody sets a dog 

 on them, and they are driven helter-skelter around for a while, 

 and the milk that you get from those cow's at that time may not 

 be over two and one-half per cent. fat. When there is such 

 a chance for so great a variation, how are you going to fix a 

 standard? All of those variations take place in the same 

 cows, kept under the same conditions, and milked by the same 

 man. I do not care if you feed them on the same food and 

 care for them all exactly alike, you will have a result in just 

 that way. 



I believe there is only one standard practicable in regard 

 to milk. I believe it today. I said it was so in 1890. I believed 

 it then. I believe it in 1906, and that is, you must take every 

 care to produce a good pure milk from healthy cows, properly 

 cared for, and kept in a ^tate of perfect cleanhness, and deliver 

 that milk sweet and pure to the man who distributes it, and 

 that is all there is to it. You cannot do any more if you try. 

 Make it a misdemeanor for any man that takes anything out 

 of it or puts anything into it. Punish him by fine or imprison- 

 ment, or by either one or both. I do not care which. That 

 is the only standard that is practicable. You have got to 

 market your milk just as you market any of your other crops. 

 It has got to stand, to a large extent, on its merit in the 

 market. H one bushel of wheat is worth more than another, 

 let the man who wants the better grade pay for it. If one 

 dairy's milk is better than another, let the man who wishes the 

 better milk pay for it. By keeping good healthy stock, well 



