1907. j DISCUSSION. 189 



cared for, and putting upon the market a good product is all 

 that you can do towards fixing a standard. You cannot fix 

 it any other way. 



A Member. Mr. President, I Uve in New Haven. I have 

 been drinking milk for some little time instead of anything 

 else, and I have traveled up and down and around about in 

 a vain attempt to find a good palatable milk. I have been 

 willing to pay ten cents. When I go to any farmer's place 

 oftentimes I cannot get a good glass of nice rich milk which 

 is clean and a nice flavor. Why is it? 



The President. That is a good point. 



Mr. Stadtmueller. Mr. Chairman, I do not know of any 

 other fat product that is placed before the consumer after 

 it leaves the producer before he is able to test the quality of 

 the output. That is, the milk that is ordinarily taken to the 

 cities requires an interval of time which varies from one or 

 two to forty-eight hours, and within that period of time the 

 development of bacterial life goes on in the milk, and that 

 largely determines the quality of the milk itself. Now this 

 lady who has just referred to the flavor of milk, when she 

 goes into the country and asks for a drink, if she gets it fresh 

 the bacterial life that comes into that milk had not had a 

 chance to assail or begin its work, but you take that same 

 milk, and let it go through the ordinary channels of trade 

 and it will not keep sweet for more than thirty-six or forty- 

 eight hours. Now the raising of the standard is the very thing 

 that will enable her to get better milk and a milk which will 

 keep longer. The decomposition which takes place in milk 

 goes on with greater or less speed until it reaches the consumer. 

 That leads me to another thought. A previous speaker asked 

 what was the meaning of the word " good " as applied to 

 milk. Of course, that is a very elastic term, and capable of 

 perhaps more than one definition, but as the result of quite a 

 number of years of experience in the retail business I think 

 I am justified in saying that the ordinary acceptation of the 



