92 Bulletin No. 34. 



Unclean utensils are another cause of bad milk, The fact 

 that a milk pail looks clean should not be taken as evidence that 

 it is clean. It is well to remember that the agencies directly caus- 

 ing the souring of milk are invisible. Belief in the cleanliness of 

 dairy utensils should be based, then, upon faith, not sight; and no 

 faith should be put in any method of washing which does not 

 include the use of boiling water. No means less effective will leave 

 them in any degree free from germ life. 



The almost universal practice of returning the skim milk to 

 the farm in the same cans used for carrying the sweet milk to the 

 factory is a custom which, in this climate, is to be deplored, for' 

 the reason that the skim milk is almost invariably sour before it 

 reaches home. The cans in which the milk goes to the factory 

 should be emptied, washed, steamed and dried before they leave 

 it and a different set used for the skim milk. 



Success in dairying is dependent upon four things: good feed, 

 good cows, good product and a good market. Good product 

 comes, not as a result of good feed or of good cows alone, but also 

 as a result of good care. There is a market for good product only. 



G. H. True, 



Department of Animal Ilushaiidiy, 



BLACK ALKALI, 

 No. 11, March 1, 



Black Alkali, though a white substance, is so named because, 

 in contact with the vegetable matter of w r et soil, it produces the 

 dark appearance so well and unfavorably known to the irrigation 

 farmer. It is the same in composition as common washing soda, 

 which resembles the caustic principle of wood ashes extracted in 

 common lye. It is chiefly formed by the decomposition of granitic 

 rocks, and when the natural rainfall and drainage are not suf- 

 ficient to carry it away it remains in the soil. 



Southern Arizona, being semi-arid and traversed by many 

 granite mountain ranges, contains some black alkali in the agri- 

 cultural soils, though the amounts are not excessive excepting 

 where irrigation has caused concentration of the alkaline salts. 



