SANITARY MILK PRODUCTION 157 



It thus appears that feeding dry and dusty feeds at milking time 

 increases the bacterial count materially as does brushing the cows, and 

 that wiping the cows udders and flanks decidedly reduces the count. 

 Rejecting the fore-milk has little effect. Experiments showed that in 

 order to exclude the fore-milk of high germ content it would be necessary 

 to waste at least six good-sized streams from each quarter, an amount 

 that means considerable loss. Also, it was shown that a student who had 

 some bacteriological training could milk so as to get a markedly lower 

 count than the regular milkers who lacked this training. 



Sterilizing and Protecting the Pails. Harding, Rhuele, Wilson and 

 Smith studied the effect upon the germ content of milk of: (1) protect- 

 ing milk pails by tying cloths over their tops before sterilizing them, and 

 not removing the cloths till milking was actually begun ; (2) of the effect 

 of plastering, of painting and of whitewashing the stable; (3) of clip- 

 ping the cows; and (4) of hand- and machine-cleaning of cows. 



In the experiment on the effect of keeping the pails covered, tests 

 were made on 6 days, four cows being used. The tests were so conducted 

 that two of the cows were milked into pails that had been sterilized and 

 kept covered till milking was begun and two were milked into sterilized 

 pails that were brought into the barn uncovered with the other utensils, 

 while on the following day the two cows that had been milked into the 

 pails that had been kept covered were milked into those that were not 

 covered and the other cows were milked into those that had been covered 

 over. No pails were used more than once at a milking. At every milk- 

 ing, samples were taken from each pail and plated. So, in the series 

 from each cow there were three samples from the protected and three 

 from the unprotected pail or 24 samples altogether. The results show an 

 average count of 922 bacteria per cubic centimeter, in the samples from 

 the protected pails, and 2,391 on those from the unprotected, or an 

 increase of 160 per cent, due to exposure. The authors regard this as 

 important though they point out that the influence of this initial con- 

 tamination would have been much less had succeeding cows been milked 

 into the same pail. 



Plastering, Painting and Whitewashing. The authors studied the 

 relationship of plastering, painting and whitewashing to the bacterial 

 count in a series of experiments at the stable of the New York Experi- 

 ment Station which had a ceiling of beaded, planed, matched southern 

 pine, and walls finished in the same material. This construction is not 

 used in modern barns because dust accumulates in cracks between the 

 boards and in the beading. Dust was allowed to collect on walls, ledges, 

 and stanchions until conditions were as bad as would be tolerated under 

 reasonably good barn management. In this state the germ content of 

 the milk of each of six cows was determined at six separate milkings. 

 When this study was completed the ceiling and walls of the stable were 



