390 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



standard quality. Yet newspaper accounts of trials and in 

 some cases official reports inadvertently allude to adulterated 

 milk, when milk not of standard quality is meant. 



Vermont, like Massachusetts, prohibits the sale of milk 

 not of good standard quality. The Maine law prescribes 

 that, when milk is found of less than the prescribed standard, 

 " it shall be deemed prima facie evidence that said milk has 

 been watered." New Hampshire has a similar law. The 

 Rhode Island law provides that, when milk is found having 

 less than a certain per cent of solids, " it shall be deemed, 

 for the purposes of said sections, to be adulterated." 



These milk laws are sometimes criticised on account of 

 the danger under which the farmer and the peddler labor in 

 carrying on their business, the charge being made that an 

 unseen sword dangles over their heads, held by a thread, 

 liable at any moment to fall upon them. This is an exag- 

 gerated statement of the case. There is very slight chance 

 of any honest producer or dealer getting into trouble through 

 selling honest milk of less than standard quality. Average 

 mixed milk contains 13 per cent of milk solids, and the 

 quality of herd milk is quite uniform. It is only a small 

 minority of individual cows that produce milk of less than 

 13 per cent solids, and even the mixed milk from grades of 

 these cows is usually very near to the standard. But during 

 five months of the year the standard is 12 per cent instead 

 of 13, so that during five-twelfths of the time the standard is 

 one per cent below the average quality of milk. Further 

 than that, the practical details in enforcing the milk laws, as 

 we have said, allow a latitude of from one-half to three-fourths 

 of one per cent. The chances of trouble are still further 

 reduced by increasing knowledge of the science of milk pro- 

 duction. The causes of variation in the quality of milk are 

 better known than ever before. It is now well established 

 that there are no great mysteries or sudden fluctuations in 

 the quality of herd milk, that feed has comparatively little 

 to do with it, and that almost everything depends upon the 

 individuality of the animals. If the mixed milk of a herd is 

 not of average quality, — a fact which is of very rare occur- 

 rence, — it is because there are too many animals in the herd 

 which are producing milk of less than standard quality. 



