144 PROTECTION OF THE CONSUMER. 



wide use of such milk should this method prove, in other 

 respects, to be satisfactory. 



There is one objection to such a certification, however, in 

 the fact that milk from any source is likely to be irregular in 

 quality. The inspectors that test the milk cannot make 

 examination of the milk of a given distributor very fre- 

 quently. They must give a certificate, not upon any indivi- 

 dual lot of milk, but upon the general average of milk of a 

 certain milk distributor. The great irregularities in the 

 numbers of bacteria in milk have already been mentioned. 

 It inevitably follows that the milk distributed by any dairy- 

 man will not always reach the same grade, and the milk 

 which comes from a given distributor may some days con- 

 tain few and upon others vastly greater numbers of bacteria. 

 Inasmuch, however, as the certificate cannot be given for an 

 individual lot of milk, but simply for the general average of 

 the product distributed by a certain dealer, it will happen 

 occasionally that the certified milk will be below the standard 

 of certification. Indeed, it has been found by practical 

 experience that, in some cases, certified milk sours very 

 quickly because of the presence of great quantities of bac- 

 teria. This irregularity is inevitable from the fact that the 

 grade of milk produced under apparently identical conditions 

 is extremely variable, and because it is impossible to do more 

 than to give a certificate of the general grade of milk. 

 Hence the method of certifying milk is only of general utility. 

 Beyond question the milk that has the certificate of such a 

 board will, on the average, be of a higher grade than that of 

 the general milk supply, but the certificate can never be abso- 

 lutely relied upon, and samples of certified milk will some- 

 times be sold, in entire innocence and good faith on the part 

 of the distributor, which are below the standard demanded by 

 the board that gives the certificate. In spite of these imper- 

 fections, however, there is no doubt that the person who pur- 

 chases certified milk will obtain milk which, in general, is 



