76 STERILIZING 



over his milk cans. By having two such pieces 

 they can both be washed and sterilized in the 

 morning, giving him one cloth for the night's 

 milking and the other for the following morning's 

 milking. The advantage of washing and sterilizing 

 both cloths in the morning is that the majority 

 of dairy farmers find it inconvenient to do wash- 

 ing and sterilizing in the evening. 



They should first be washed in a basin of cold 

 water and alkali powder. Next they should be 

 rinsed in clean cold water to get rid of the excess 

 alkali. After this they must be boiled on the 

 kitchen stove for at least thirty minutes in order 

 to kill the bacteria, some of which have exceed- 

 ingly hard shells, and are not killed by ordinary 

 scalding. The cloths must then be hung up to 

 dry in a clean place. Out of doors on a line 

 over green grass in the sunlight is an ideal place 

 for drying strainer cloths. In the winter time a 

 line behind the kitchen stove is satisfactory if 

 the room does not contain much dust. Farmers 

 often fail to properly clean and sterilize filter 

 cloths after the night's milking. As a result, 

 night's milk may contain few bacteria, while 

 morning's milk after passing through the unster- 

 ilized filter, contains many millions. 



