No. 4.] MILK SUPPLY OF CITIES. 67 



forcement standard is usually not over 12.5 per cent; and 

 if the statute standard were to be lowered, the enforcement 

 standard would have to be correspondingly reduced. 



With this explanation of the slight elasticity in the stand- 

 ard for purposes of legal prosecution, we return to the 

 query, Is the present standard too high ? On one point all 

 can agree ; one fact is so well established that there can be 

 no dispute about it, — namely, average milk has 13 per 

 cent of total solids. A volume of authority could be quoted 

 on this point. 



The Average Quality of Milk. 



The United States department, in its hand-book of experi- 

 ment stations as well as in its annual reports, alludes to 13 

 per cent as being the average. Major Alvord, the chief of 

 the dairy division, says that normal milk ranges from 10 to 

 15 per cent of total solids. The Massachusetts experiment 

 station has made 1,889 analyses, and finds the average 

 13.47. A few years ago the Massachusetts Board of Health 

 concluded that the standard adopted by the statute was a 

 little below the general average of milk throughout the 

 State, having found the general average for total solids to 

 be between 13.2 and 13.3. 



The Boston milk inspector finds that the samples taken 

 by him average above 13 per cent ; a majority of even the 

 suspicious samples are all right. Mr. Blair, the chemist 

 for C. Brigham Co., milk contractors, finds that the average 

 analysis of milk received by that company is 13 per cent, 

 or above, and this average includes occasional samples of 

 watered milk. The milk on the company's Brookfield car 

 in 1894 was analyzed 1,170 times through the whole year, 

 and the average was 13.23. More than one-half of the 

 samples taken by the Board of Health, including those thai 

 are adulterated or suspicious, are above the standard. Pro- 

 fessor Goessmann, reporting to the State Board of Health 

 that increasing density of population is coincident with de- 

 creasing quality of milk, finds in the western 'part of the 

 State only from 19 to 22 per cent of the specimens below- 

 standard. 



