444 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



cream makes it more fluid, and hence less acceptable to 

 people who have been educated to associate richness with 

 thickness. It was impossible to convince them that a thin 

 cream might have as much fat as a thick cream. As the 

 increasing use of cream made it necessary to ship the ar- 

 ticle considerable distances, compelling pasteurization, the 

 trouble threatened to become serious, until Professor Bab- 

 cock came to the relief of the situation with the statement 

 that viscogen (sugar of lime) added to cream in very small 

 amounts would restore its viscosity without adding any 

 deleterious feature. Consequently this practice has been 

 adopted to a considerable extent, and has the sanction of 

 the best dairy authorities in the country, though it is a 

 violation of Massachusetts law, which forbids the addition 

 of " any foreign substance." During the past year informa- 

 tion has come to us of the use of this substance to promote 

 dishonesty and to injure the trade in cream. A gentleman 

 who was selling a 50 per cent, cream came in competition 

 Avith an article which was claimed to be "just as good," 

 but which was sold at a cut price. Samples were taken, 

 and the competing cream was found to have only 30 per 

 cent, of fat ; but it was thickened with viscogen, so as to 

 have the viscosity of the 50 per cent, article. An unfor- 

 tunate feature of the business is the difficulty of determin- 

 ing the addition of this adulterant with sufficient certainty 

 to maintain a case in court, lime being a natural ingre- 

 dient of cream, and in variable amounts. 



Boston Milk. 



The situation in Boston has been of exceptional interest 

 during the past year, and milk history has been made rap- 

 idly. As stated in a previous report, the wholesale price 

 and the price to producers in October, 1900, advanced 4 

 cents per can over the winter price which had prevailed for 

 four years, for the winter period of six months, at the city 

 end of the line. The advance to consumers, with an unwise 

 agitation, proved too much for the market, and on the 1st 

 of January, 1901, the producers' price dropped 2 cents. 

 This was the first time in the history of the trade, or at 



