THE jHAWAIIAN 



rORESTER I AGRICULTURIST 



Vol. XI. SEPTEMBER, 1914. No. 9 



INEFFICIENT DAIRY INSPECTION. 





If the municipal authorities fail in their duty to carry out the 

 provisions of the milk ordinance which have to do with the clean- 

 liness of dairies from which the public is supplied with milk, upon 

 them will fall the responsibility not only of endangering the health 

 and lives of the people — children in particular — but of preventing 

 Honolulu from making the finest record of any municipal district 

 in the world with respect to pure and wholesome milk supply. 

 For, according to Dr. Norgaard's official reports, the testing of 

 dairy cattle for tuberculosis has been more effectively accom- 

 plished, and that without compensation from the public treasury 

 for cattle that had to be destroyed, in the City and County of 

 Honolulu, comprising the island of Oahu. than in any other juris- 

 diction of which data has come to hand. 



When the milk ordinance was passed, about five years ago. Dr. 

 Ndrgaard, the Territorial veterinarian, with the sanction of the 

 Board of Commissioners of Agriculture and Forestry, undertook 

 to do the testing of cattle. This was to enable the dairymen to 

 comply with the provision forbidding the sale of milk from tuber- 

 culous cows without having to pay professional fees for the ser- 

 vice, besides being in accordance wdth the functions of the agri- 

 cultural bureau relating to the suppression of diseases of livestock. 

 This undertaking was begun under an arrangement between the 

 committee on animal industry of the Board and the Board of 

 Supervisors, whereby the latter gave money and the assistance 

 of its sanitary inspectors to help the work. Very satisfactory 

 results from this arrangement were achieved, as all who have 

 followed the reports of the veterinarian know. Opponents of the 

 milk ordinance at its inception, who insisted that without a com- 

 pensation provision the measure would utterly fail, have been 

 proved absolutely mistaken. Tuberculosis has been practically 

 eradicated from the jurisdiction, and not one claim for compensa- 

 tion for hundreds of cattle destroyed has been recorded. 



It is regrettable to find, in view of the achievement just men- 

 tioned, that the veterinarian is comoelled to report failure with 

 regard to the other prime object of the ordinance, that of enforc- 

 ing sanitation in dairies, which is particularly in the province of 

 the municipal government tliat enacted the measure. He shows 

 in his Julv report, printed in this number, that the milk from 



