708 EXPERIMENT STATIOISr EECOED. 



record for all pure-bred herds which can be certified as safe herds 

 from which tuberculosis-free cattle may be purchased. It was an- 

 nounced that this proposal has met with favorable replies from 

 cattle breeders and if put in operation will mark a material advance 

 in the campaign for better milk. 



In what has been said no attempt has been made to present a 

 comprehensive review of either the history and present status of 

 milk inspection or of the scientific work related thereto. The aim 

 has been rather to indicate some of the principal lines toward which 

 attention is being directed and to point out the dependence of the 

 inspection service on scientific work for the solution of many of its 

 unsolved problems. Some of these problem.s are, of course, outside 

 the field of experiment station activity, but others appear both ap- 

 propriate and feasible, and it is thought that their consideration 

 may prove suggestive of opportunities for research at once funda- 

 mental and of immediate application. 



There are several lessons to be drawn from the history of milk 

 and dairy inspection as developed in the last quarter of a century. 

 One is that safe progress in defining methods and standards must 

 rest upon investigation, which must often be thorough and far- 

 reaching in order to serve as an intelligent basis for action. Nowhere 

 is the danger of imperfect information and too broad generalization 

 more strikingly enforced by possible consequences. The investiga- 

 tion can not safely stop with the empirical fact but needs to disclose 

 the cause and the relationships. 



Nor can it be restricted to the laboratory and to laboratory condi- 

 tions. It is when laboratory studies have been supported by studies 

 and trials on a practical scale and under practical conditions that the 

 results have been most convincing and have proved most dependable. 

 And finally, the investigator must take full account of the producer, 

 in the effort to help him to make his practice more scientific and 

 the science of production more practical. 



