84 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [rub. Doc. 



ity wliic'h is rightly his ? It is the forcing of a responsi- 

 bility upon him which does not belong to him that has made 

 much of the friction which has grown up in recent years. 

 The statement has been made that 800 cases of typlioid 

 in Boston were charged back to the farmers. 



Mr. Ellis. In the particular case referred to the respon- 

 sibility has been to a considerable extent accepted by the 

 contractors of Deerfoot farm. They have published a 

 pamphlet which has been quite widely distributed, and I 

 think it was established that the 800 cases came through 

 that source of supply. But every case of typhoid which has 

 been discovered in milk not infrequently has gone back to 

 the producer, and to that extent the responsibility of us as 

 producers has not ceased when we delivered that milk to 

 the contractor. If any of the milk when we deliver it to the 

 contractor carries germs of typhoid with it, as has been the 

 case in more than one instance, you couldn't get rid of that. 

 I agree absolutely with Dr. Twitchell, that so far as this 

 increase of bacteria is concerned, and the general question 

 of the condition of the milk, the responsibility of the pro- 

 ducer should cease whtm he delivers it to the contractor, but 

 in the cases of typhoid fever and scarlet fever they have 

 traced it back to the producer in several cases. 



Mr. Potter. I agree with Mr. Ellis that the problem is 

 how to apply the truths enunciated to-day, and I should like 

 to raise the question, what is the objection to doing away 

 with our system of inspection ? We all know that the system 

 at the present time is complicated and unsatisfactory. Now, 

 suppose we should take the bull by the horns, and wipe all 

 our laws in regard to inspection of milk off the statute book, 

 and in llicir place make some provision whereby each milk 

 could be properly analyzed, so that the consumers would 

 know that it was pure ; suppose that was done and there was 

 a provision made that there should l)e no milk containing 

 more than say 200,000 bacteria — whatever nundx'r you 

 might place it at — and then have another class of milk 

 at another period, and so on. ^Miat is the objection to that? 

 We have been racking our brains for years to make new 

 laws to apply to the matter, and we don't succeed. Now 



