64 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



ciple, and common-sense ratines the decision. Such a 

 statute is needed to protect the consumer against fraud. 

 Water, even if drawn from the cow's udder, has no more 

 food value than it has when drawn from the pump. A 

 standard is needed in the interests of agriculture to save the 

 producer of the better qualities of milk from competing 

 with what the supreme court of Rhode Island denominates 

 as " an article useful for irrigation only." 



An arbitrary statute standard is further needed, in the 

 interests of a good and progressive agriculture, to check a 

 tendency which always exists in the sale milk business, viz., 

 a tendency to breed down instead of up. By continuously 

 breeding from cows that produce large amounts of milk, 

 regardless of quality, we raise up generation after genera- 

 tion from whose udders is drawn more and more milk which 

 is steadily growing poorer and poorer. Breeding for a 

 purpose can accomplish much ; but when that purpose, ex- 

 pressed or implied, is a deterioration in quality, it is not 

 identical with the best agriculture, and demands a check. 

 This it receives in a law which says, "Thus far shalt thou 

 go and no farther," by prohibiting the sale of any milk 

 below a designated quality. A compilation of ten years' 

 records of the State Board of Health shows an increasing 

 per cent of samples below the standard. Though this 

 includes adulterated milk, it probably shows that there is 

 an increasing number of cows producing poorer milk, as a 

 result of the tendencies of the sale milk business. 



Another reason for a statute standard of milk is the help 

 it gives in prosecuting those who adulterate milk. Within 

 certain broad limits the chemist can tell by the proportion 

 of the different solids in milk whether it has been tampered 

 with. I recently met a case where analysis showed that a 

 certain sample of milk had 4 per cent of fat and 7.75 per 

 cent of solids not fat. The relation between those two fig- 

 ures told beyond doubt that the milk had been watered, for 

 normal milk with 4 per cent of fat should have at least 9 per 

 cent of solids not fat. But the ease is not always so clear. 

 Within narrow limits water or skim-milk could be added, 

 or some cream removed, and detection would be difficult. 



