178 THE MILK QUESTION 



Federal inspection. It is evidently impossible for the 

 Federal Government to cover the entire country with an 

 efficient system of milk inspection capable of meeting all 

 the demands of the case. It would require an army of in- 

 spectors and an enormous outlay of money, and create a 

 ponderous and unwieldy bureau which would help to defeat 

 the object sought. The activities of the Federal Govern- 

 ment are largely limited to the milk which enters interstate 

 traffic. The advantages of centralization are -plain, but 

 in view of our dual form of government the authority from 

 Washington has no legal power over milk which does not 

 cross a state line. 



The Federal Government has taken an active interest in 

 the milk problem in at least two of its great departments. 

 The Department of Agriculture, in its Milk Division of the 

 Bureau of Animal Industry, has shown commendable zeal 

 and has been very helpful in stimulating progress, promot- 

 ing local legislation, and pointing out the needs of the case. 

 The Dairy Division of the Bureau of Animal Industry 

 makes a special study of the sanitary production and 

 handling of milk, investigates problems of transportation 

 and distribution, examines ordinances, laws, and methods 

 of inspection, and disseminates this information by printed 

 literature, correspondence, lectures, personal visits, and 

 exhibitions of various kinds. 



This branch of the Federal Government is not a far- 

 away affair, but comes to our very doors, as shown by its 

 recent activities in New England. Thus agents of the 

 Government have visited, for the purpose of explaining 

 the score-card system of dairy inspection, Springfield, Fall 

 River, Worcester, Salem, and Holyoke in Massachusetts. 

 Recently government officers have investigated the dairies 

 supplying Boston with interstate milk, and a similar inves- 

 tigation of Massachusetts dairies is now under way. 



The Bureau of Chemistry of the Department of Agri- 

 culture, formerly presided over by Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, 



