388 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



farmers ought to recognize that fact. It is not the dirt he can see, but 

 it is the bacteria on that dirt. The air in the barn, if not kept pure, 

 becomes full of germs. When the cow is fed hay, the air becomes full 

 of dust, which carries great numbers of germs. When the cow is milked 

 in these barns with the air in this condition, the dust falls into the pail 

 and the germs carried by it find the right conditions there for develop- 

 ing ; there may be only a comparatively small number, but these few will 

 multiply and develop and make thousands and millions. It is matters 

 of this kind we do not realize when milking a cow. A great many 

 farmers say they cannot milk with dry hands. You milk with wet 

 hands, your hands are warm and moist and the milk on them spreads 

 over the udder, and the heat of your hands is just right for rapid re- 

 production of germs. You inoculate that milk, and it gradually finds 

 its way into the pail ; for that reason you ought to milk with dry and 

 clean hands. 



Cool the Milk Quickly. — The next step in getting pure milk is to 

 put it in condition so that these germs cannot grow. I said that in grow- 

 ing corn we had to have certain conditions, there must be warmth and 

 moisture, or the seed will not grow- — simply lie dormant. It is the same 

 way with the germs. If they do not have sufficient warmth they will not 

 grow. Not one farmer in one hundred realizes what this means. Some 

 of the best dairy men, who deliver milk in the cities, claiming to supply 

 sanitary milk, themselves do not know what this means. 



They will allow the milk to stand for a long time after milking, 

 without cooling, and in that time the germs will multiply into 

 thousands, and thousands into millions. One of the points that ought 

 to be driven into the mind of every dairyman and farmer is that the 

 more quickly that milk can be cooled the better article he is going to 

 have. If the conditions in his barn have not been ideal (which is the 

 case with ninety-nine per cent of the barns) he must realize that if he 

 will take that milk and cool it immediately — let just as few minutes 

 elapse as possible between milking and cooling — ^he can put it in condi- 

 tion that the germs cannot grow rapidly, and that, if they do not grow, 

 the milk will remain in good condition for a long time. 



There was a shipment of milk made from a farm in Illinois to Paris. 

 This milk was neither pasteurized nor doped with preservatives. It was 

 simply clean milk, cooled immediately after milking, and fourteen or 

 fifteen days later it was served in the cafes in Paris, and was much 

 better than the milk they could get there. This shows what can be 

 done by cleanly methods of handling milk. It is all-important to every 

 one of you. If you are shipping cream, of course, you have got to pass 



