70 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



practical law could be drafted, which would not be full of 

 loopholes for the advantage of the dishonest, by which the 

 milkman could state what he sells and sell Avhat he states, 

 I would not object. If it were possible to have a 13 per 

 cent standard and also one of 11 per cent, for instance, each 

 kind of milk to be properly marked and labelled and sold 

 on its merits, there could be no objection. (I have no faith 

 in the possibility of such a law, in view of experience with 

 the tendency of human nature to evade the provisions of 

 the skim-milk law.) But it does seem wrong to ask the 

 right to sell 10, 11 or even 12 pounds of food at the 13 

 pound price. The State Board of Health said in 1892 : 

 "Strangely enough, the pretence is often urged by milk 

 producers that milk containing 11 or 12 per cent of total 

 solids is quite as wholesome or nutritious as that which con- 

 tains 13 or 14 per cent of solids. The absurdity of this 

 argument is plain enough, since, if it were true, it might 

 reasonably be asserted that milk having 7 or 8 per cent of 

 solids is as wholesome as that which has 11 per cent, and so 

 on ad infinlteMmum." 



Second. — "The honest farmer is always in imminent 

 danger of prosecution ; a legal sword is constantly dangling 

 over his head by a hair, ready to descend without any warn- 

 ing." This point exists in imagination rather than in actu- 

 ality ; but at a committee hearing, or where the demagogue 

 can get attention, the statement can be amplified in thrilling 

 and plausible language, just as ghost stories can be told 

 which will make your blood run cold and your hair stand 

 on end, — but there are no ghosts. 



Average milk has 13 per cent solids, and the average 

 mixed milk of average cows is constant in quality. Milk 

 below standard is the exception. When it is found, unless 

 it is very bad, a warning is sent and subsequent samples 

 taken. If improvement is shown, no prosecution results. 

 Even when complaint is made and the milkman found guilty, 

 the court can put the case on file, instead of imposing the 

 statutory tine, if there are mitigating circumstances. Hence 

 the chance of trouble is slight. Figures reveal the same 

 thing. 



