608 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



days or two weeks until fall, when the quack-grass will be completely 

 killed out. 



It sometimes happens that with certain kinds of soil during drier 

 periods in the summer the ground becomes too hard to plow. With the 

 type of plow suggested, however, it has been found that very hard and 

 dry sods can be turned. In case it is not possible to turn the sod on 

 account of dry weather, the treatment can be given with the disk harrow 

 alone. We have been able to thoroughly kill the grass with either the 

 disk or the combination of plow and disk treatment. Where plowing is 

 possible, however, it is usually cheaper to kill the grass with plow and 

 disk than with the disk alone. 



If the disk alone is to be used, it should be set practically straight, 

 well weighted with bags of dirt, and the field gone over three or four 

 times. The first two cuttings should be at right angles and the other 

 cuttings diagonally across. The sod in this way is divided into small 

 blocks. Then the disk is set at an agle, when it will be found that the 

 first 2 or 3 inches of the sod, which contain practically all of the quack- 

 grass roots, can be cut loose from the soil below. The exposure to the 

 sun and the breaking loose from the lower soil soon kill out the quack- 

 grass. This ground should be gone over at intervals of ten days or two 

 weeks thoroughout the remainder of the season. 



The following spring the infested land, on which the grass has been 

 killed either by the disking method or by the combination of plowing 

 and disking, should be plowed to a good depth in order to bury the mass 

 of dead roots thoroughly. This will facilitate the cultivation of the 

 spring crop. If the work has been carefully done the quack-grass will not 

 show up at all in the spring crop. 



THE CARE OP MILK IN THE HOME. 



By George M. Whitaker, 



In Charge of Market Milk Investigations, Dairy Division, Bureau of 

 Animal Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture. 



INTRODUCTION. 



If the milk producer and the milk dealer have done their duty there 

 is daily left at the consumer's door a bottle of clean, cold, unadulterated 

 milk. By improper treatment in the home the milk may then become 

 unfit for food, especially for babies. This bad treatment consists (1) in 

 placing it in unclean vessels; (2) in exposing it unnecessarily to the air; 

 (3) in failing to keep it cool up to the time of using it; and (4) in ex- 

 posing it to flies. 



Milk absorbs impurities — collects bacteria — whenever it is exposed to 

 the air or placed in unclean vessels. Some of these may be the bacteria 

 of certain contagious diseases; others may cause digestive troubles which 

 in the case of babies may prove fatal. Much of the cholera infantum and 

 summer bowl troubles of infants is due to impure milk. The amount of 



