83 



stout boy or girl, man or woman, who gets well paid and a 

 little extra promised if the annual yield of the cows milked 

 exceeds a certain amount. The question of milking is fur- 

 ther treated in the chapter on sanitary milk, where nearly 

 all the suggestions given may be adopted (somewhat modi- 

 fied) more or less by any and all milk producers to their own 

 advantage and for the benefit of humanity. 



1 A f f ' 



CARE OF THE MILK. 



The question of the care of milk for city supply is an all 

 important one, but I regret that there is a general inclination 

 to make a distinction between that and the care given to milk 

 delivered at creameries and cheese factories. There ought 

 to be none, at least as far as to the shipping station. 



Having provided a clean stable as shortly 'outlined and 

 having provided sound and fairly balanced food and pure 

 water, the next question is the care of the milk. Even with 

 all possible precaution against contamination, there is always 

 need of some kind of purification. The means of doing this 

 may be classed as straining, filtering and clarifying by centri- 

 fugal force. 



STRAINING. 



On few subjects has there been so much misunderstand- 

 ing as on this w r ay of purifying milk, and it is a noteworthy 

 fact that Swiss cheesemakers prefer their patrons not to 

 strain the milk because they may then see how careful the 

 milkers have been in excluding straw, muck and dirt. There 

 is a good deal of sound sense in this idea, because generally 

 the straining of the milk is a delusion and a snare, and pre- 

 vention is better than cure. Take a slovenly, careless milker, 

 milking say ten cows. He gets up cross and imparts the 

 same feeling to the cow, who promptly kicks and splashes 

 some dirt in the first pail. This is kept back in the strainer 

 and the milk of the next cow and the next is poured over it, 

 nicely rinsing all the fine dirt and bacteria off the coarser and 

 visible dirt and straws into the milk can. 



Many are the devices, more or less effective, (generally 

 less) invented to prevent this, but, as far as I have seen, they 

 are all more or less difficult to keep clean. I prefer therefore 

 a simple fine wire strainer to catch straws, etc., and beneath 



