SEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VIII. 351 



Purchase or Sale of Unwholesome Milk or Cream. 



From Chapter 10, Title 24, Code. 



Section 4 9S9. Sale of impure or skimmed milk — skimmed milk 

 cheese — labeling — purchase of unwholesome milk or cream. — If any 

 person shall sell, exchange, or expose for sale or exchange or deliver 

 or bring to another, for domestic or potable use, or to be converted into 

 any product of human food, any unclean, impure, unhealthy, adulter- 

 ated, unwholesome or skimmed milk or milk from which has been 

 held back what is commonly known as strippings, or milk taken from 

 an animal having disease, sickness, ulcers, abscess or running sore, 

 or which has been taken from the animal within fifteen days before 

 or five days after parturition; or if any person shall purchase, to be 

 converted into any product of human food, any unclean, unhealthful, 

 adulterated or unwholesome milk or cream, or shall manufacture any 

 such milk or cream into any product of human food. * * * he shall he 

 fined not less than twenty-five nor more than one hundred dollars, and be 

 liable for double damages to the person or persons upon whom such 

 frauds shall be committed. * * * 



This section of the Iowa dairy law has been changed by the intro- 

 duction of the words italicized and the effect is to make the buyer 

 of bad cream equally responsible with the seller of it, to provide a 

 penalty for the purchase to be made into product of human food of 

 any unclean, unwholesome, unhealthy or adulterated cream or milk. 

 Since the advent of the central creamery competition among the 

 creameries has been very sharp and while every creamery operator 

 desires to have the best of the product, yet the necessity of getting 

 volume of business has tempted not a few to receive and pay for 

 cream from which no pi'oduct of human food ought ever to be made. As 

 previously pointed out, this bad practice was a practical inducement 

 to the producer to bring to the market cream that was bad or worse. 

 The former law provided a penalty for the seller of bad cream or 

 milk, but the law was scarcely ever enforced for the reason that the 

 buyer of it was the real guilty person. A few prosecutions have been 

 made under this amended law and fines have been inflicted, both upon 

 purchasers and sellers of both unwholesome milk and cream, but the 

 experience of last summer has led to the belief that the quality of 

 milk and cream delivered to the creameries and shipping agents in 

 this State will not attain that high quality that it ought to have until 

 a much more complete inspection can be made of it than is now made 

 with the small force at the command of this office. 



The hand separator has thoroughly proved its usefulness in this 

 State, but it came into use accompanied by theories inimical to good 

 dairying. The salesmen claimed too much for the machine. Too 

 often the producer was assured that washing once a week was all 

 that was necessary, and that cream delivered once a w^eek was plenty 

 good enough. These theories are absurd, of course, but they have 

 been followed by enough people so that hand separator butter is at a 



