Ill 



is not so very Utopian and deserves a serious consideration 

 by students of the problem, how to secure a sanitary milk 

 supply: 



"In handling and preserving milk, measures calculated to 

 prevent contamination are innuitely better than remedies 

 for defects allowed to develop in the milk at an early stage. 

 Whether .cooling or pasteurization or both are applied for 

 its preservation, these means should be used while the milk 

 is as iresh and pure as possible. 



A friend of mine in Denmark who has devoted a large 

 part of his life to the supply of the city of Copenhagen with 

 pure milk and who is a confirmed opponent to pasteurization, 

 recently told me that in his opinion intense cooling is the 

 only proper means of preserving milk. ''Cooling," he said, 

 "checks any growth of deleterious bacteria, and I would have 

 it applied before the germs have any chance of developing. 

 I would milk into a pail in which the milk strikes a surface 

 cooled by ice direct as it flows from the cow." 



At a meeting of milkmen, farmers and physicians in New 

 York last winter where the question was discussed what 

 could be done to improve the sanitary condition of the milk 

 supply, some of the health authorities demanded largely in- 

 creased cleanliness in the barn, etc. A farmer, in despair at 

 the exactions required, exclaimed: "Gentlemen, I would 

 milk miy cows in my parlor if I could get paid for it." 



Now, these suggestions are neither ridiculous nor Uto- 

 pian, but are measures which will be required and carried 

 through, sooner or later, and the sooner the better. 



In Farmers' Bulletin No. 63, 1897, issued by the United 

 States Department of Agriculture, Dr. R. A. Pearson, As- 

 sistant Chief of the Dairy Division, in his admirable treatise 

 on "Care of Milk on the Farm," shows how the milk is con- 

 taminated in the barn, how the bacteria adhering to dust, 

 hair and other impurities enter the milk and develop with 

 fearful rapidity and how in many cases this is the chief 

 source of contamination. The very measures taken by the 

 careful dairyman to keep the cows and the stable clean are 

 apt to defeat their purpose. Just before milking, the drop- 

 pings are raked dow r n from under the cows, the bedding is 

 shaken up, and the cows are groomed, all of which tends to 

 fill the air with germ-carrying dust which settles in the milk 

 during the milking, and the mischief is done which the great- 



