THE SANITARY FACTORS 75 



is constrained to say that " present score cards cannot 

 be satisfactorily used as means of grading milk accord- 

 ing to quality. " 



Going back for a moment to the origin of the present 

 score cards, we find that, in the words of other investiga- 

 tors along a related line (H. A. Harding * and others, 

 also of the New York State Agricultural Experiment 

 Station) : 



When health officials, failing to find other means of char- 

 acterizing sanitary milk, undertook to specify the conditions 

 under which it should be produced they were confronted 

 by an almost total lack of detailed information upon this 

 subject. This lack arose from the fact that the available 

 studies upon milk sanitation were in the nature of general 

 surveys of the situation. While these general surveys were 

 a necessary preliminary, they gave little information as to 

 either the absolute or the relative importance of any given 

 dairy operation. 



Later these official dairy regulations took the form of score 

 cards. These cards not only selected certain operations as 

 important but assigned to each of them a definite numerical 

 value. 



This arbitrary selection of values in the absence of definite 

 information upon the subject has frequently done injustice 

 to the dairy business and can be justified only upon the 

 ground of the urgent need of official action. The importance 

 of the interests involved demands that the needed informa- 

 tion shall be furnished as promptly as possible. 8 



Mr. Brew, also, says that " there is little hope of de- 

 signing a score card which will accomplish this purpose 

 [of grading milk according to quality] until all of the 



* Now of the University of Illinois. 



