EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK-PART VIII. 363 



other, for domestic or potable use, or to be converted into any product of 

 human food, any unclean, impure, unhealthy, adulterated, unwholesome 

 or skimmed milk, or milk from which has been held back what is com- 

 monly 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 be 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. * * * 



Attention is called to the fact that the above law provides the same 

 penalty for the purchase by manufacturers of butter as for the sale of 

 unwholesome milk or cream. Six successful prosecutions under this 

 statute have been undertaken during the last year. The larger receivers 

 of cream report; that conditions have very greatly improved within the 

 last twelve months. They have uniformly taken advantage of the law 

 to press upon the shipper the absolute necessity of sending in cream that 

 is fit for making into butter and the net results have been the improve- 

 ment mentioned. 



WATER IN BUTTER. 



The increased activity of internal revenue officials among creameries 

 has been one of the incidents of the last season. The presence of more 

 than the legal maximum of 16 per cent of water in butter is so flagrant 

 an offense, and the sale of such butter such an inexcusable blunder, that 

 one can not sympathize much with the creamery manager or creamery 

 buttermaker who gets into the net of the internal revenue official. De- 

 spite the efforts of the dairy papers, the officers of this department, and 

 others interested in the welfare of the industry, the buttermaker who 

 actually tests every churning of his butter for water is the exception and 

 not the rule; and the manager who insists that his buttermaker shall so 

 test every churning on pain of discharge has not been discovered. 



It may be of service to have it stated here that a number of Iowa 

 creameries have been assessed from $250 to much greater amounts, which 

 they have paid; that an official of another state paid $1,600 for sale of 

 butter containing too much water; and that practically all makes of but- 

 ter are being examined in the markets by internal revenue officials to see 

 if they violate the law; that if the make of a creamery shows more than 

 16 per cent of water at any time it is almost certain to be discovered 

 and the penalty inflicted upon the creamery management; that the rea- 

 son why these cases and penalties are not more exploited in the dairy 

 papers is because the penalties are inflicted by the internal revenue offi- 

 cials in the way of license fees required and payments of tax at the rate of 

 ten cents a pound upon the butter seized, and there is no publicity as 

 there would be if the creamery manager were prosecuted and fined in open 

 court. However, those who imagine that the internal revenue officials 

 are not active in the enforcement of this law are wholly deceived as 



