Department of Dairy Industry. xcvii 



demnecl and destroyed because its leucocyte content was higher than 

 the standard set by the city authorities. Comparatively little scien- 

 tific work has been done on this subject, and the real significance of 

 leucocytes in milk has not been fully understood. In view of the 

 fact that this question is one of direct interest to the dairymen, our 

 department has been endeavoring to determine the normal leucocyte 

 content of milk as drawn directly from the udder of apparently 

 healthy cows. 



(i) From time to time as opportunity has permitted we have 

 studied various inexpensive methods for the production and hand- 

 ling of clean milk. Our purpose in this is to determine what 

 methods will be most helpful to the average milk producer rather 

 than to one who is producing certified milk. The demand for a 

 cleaner grade of milk is increasing constantly and our large cities 

 are insisting that milk shall be produced and handled under certain 

 sanitary conditions in order that it may be sold within their limits. 

 For this reason one of the important problems before the milk pro- 

 ducer at the present time is the production of cleaner milk without 

 materially increasing its cost, and it is with the hope that we may 

 be of service to such men that we are doing this. 



III. EXTENSION. 



The extension work engaged in by this Department during the 

 year may be considered under the following heads : 



(a) Correspondence. One important part of the duty of the De- 

 partment is the prompt attention to letters of inquiry which are 

 received in large numbers. Dairymen from all parts of the State 

 write us for information on all phases of dairy work. It is the 

 policy of the Department to have such correspondence attended to 

 promptl}^, giving desired information so far as it is known. Several 

 thousand letters of this nature have been written during the past 

 year. 



(b) The work of the Winter Courses outlined above may prop- 

 erly be considered as extension work. 



(c) Work at Farmers' Institutes and other meetings. Because 

 of the large amount of teaching we have had to do it has not been 

 possible for the members of our Department to do as much work of 

 this sort as we would like. Its value is appreciated, and it is hoped 

 that at least one more member can be added to our teaching force 

 so that all members of the Department will have better oppor- 

 tunity for doing institute and grange work. 



