232 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



CLEAN MILK— WHY?— HOW? 



By Dr. Geo. M. Whittaker, Dairy Division, United States Dept. of Agriculture, 



Washington, D. C. 



Few people know what the word clean means. They think 

 they do but they are mistaken. How many of you have a carpet 

 on your Hving room floor which the good house-wife goes over 

 daily with a sweeper, and which you take up and beat for her once 

 a year — or two? Do you consider that a clean way of living? 

 Contrast that method with a system of rugs which can be rolled 

 up and taken out of doors weekly for a thorough sweeping. 



Not many weeks since, I stopped at the leading restaurant in 

 a bright enterprising city. The day was warm and the whole front 

 of the place was open. At the end of the lunch counter not a 

 dozen feet from the street gutter stood a row of uncovered pies. 

 They were in the same air as that of the street; whenever a pass- 

 ing car or a natural breeze raised a cloud of dust, with all which 

 that implies, the particles would settle on those pies. But more 

 than that, a host of flies having taken a hearty meal on street 

 manure and refuse were having pie for dessert. As far as I could 

 judge I was the only one of those eating at the restaurant or 

 passing on the street who considered the conditions as bad. If I 

 had told the proprietor that he was running a dirty place, he would 

 have resented the charge, possibly to my physical injury, for was 

 not the white tile floor scrubbed every morning? How often do 

 I hear dairymen boast of the number of times they strain milk 

 as proof of their cleanliness, ignorant of the fact that the more 

 milk is strained the dirtier it may become. 



In defining the word clean, we must not belong to the class 

 who having eyes see not. Our visual organs must be alert to 

 visible dirt, even in out-of-the-way places ; but we must also under- 

 stand that there is such a thing as invisible dirt and lots of it; it 

 is there just the same even if we can't see it. 



The demand for cleaner milk has been a familiar sound in 

 my ears for a long time. Many years ago, when connected with 

 the Massachusetts Dairy Bureau, I frequently heard creamery 

 buttermakers grumble at the dirty product sometimes furnished 

 them and complain that they could not make Number One butter 

 if even one farmer in twenty furnished dirty cream. 



More recently the subject of cleaner milk has received in- 

 creased prominence, and has come to the front all over the country. 



