FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 27 



111 politics the faimers are considered tlie great conservative class. 

 While this is an enviable position to occupy, you should not go to 

 such extremes as to sit in a silent and martial attitude, while others, 

 with maybe selfish motives in view, do all the planning and leave 

 nothing for you but to fall into line and endure. When you are through 

 with this session, you will go to your homes and your farms with a 

 more complete understanding of your business, your duties to society 

 and to your State. 



Hoping for a profitable session this afternoon, I will take up the 

 program as prepared for you. 



SOME ACTIONS OF BACTEIIIA IN MILK. 



RY FROF. CHARLES E. MARSHALL_, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



For some years I have been especially interested in the study of 

 the production of pure milk. It has always seemed to iny mind that 

 most of our difficulties in the making of butter and of cheese and in 

 the furnishing of good milk for city consumption may be traced directly 

 to the dirt which enters the milk after it leaves the udder of the 

 cow. This may be demonstrated plainly and forcibly by the use of a 

 few sterile flasks of milk which may be inoculated with those elements 

 likely to enter the milk during the milking process and during its hand- 

 ling before it reaches the dairy. If our assumption is true, it is per- 

 tinent to say that dirt is introduced into milk, and its effects must 

 be overcome in one way or another after such introduction or, in other 

 words, we must undo some acts which we have already executed. It 

 is, therefore, evident that we are not consistent in our milk manip- 

 ulations and whether we are practical or even right remains for time 

 to demonstrate. It is now becoming a question whether it is cheaper 

 to pasteurize than to produce pure milk when judged from the finan- 

 cial standpoint. The future will be able to solve this question and 

 we shall know whether pure milk may be produced with the same 

 economy as milk which is full of pollution. 



It is certainly gratifying to note that many who, three or four 

 years ago, would not even entertain the idea of producing a pure 

 milk, are at present basing their claims for progress and advancement 

 upon this very commendable notion. They are advocating cleanliness 

 in milk production and one of these men has gone so far as to say 

 that all future progress in dairy work is bound up in the ability of the 

 farmer to produce a purer milk. This man claims that our cheese 

 cannot be improved much, our butter will remain where it is, and our 

 milk supplies will be chaotic until the milk producers themselves 

 shall see the force of pure milk. 



Today it is not my purpose under the subject given to discuss the 

 various possible actions of bacteria upon milk, for I shall assume 

 (hat you are acquainted with many of these actions, and to help out 

 this matter, I have prepared several flasks to indicate certain changes 

 which mav result from the action of bacteria. Mv efforts for the 



