NEW YORK MILK COMMITTEE 93 



THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any other remarks? 



MR. DANA: I am President of the Western New York Milk 

 Producers' Association. I have been somewhat amused in listen- 

 ing to the resolutions that have been passed here to-night. I am 

 just a plain farmer, and I may not know, but it seems to me that 

 we have turned down those propositions that have been sanctioned 

 by the best authorities for years as being good. We have turned 

 down the proposition of certified milk and left us at sea. Our 

 eminent and distinguished men come here and turn down the propo- 

 sition of bottling milk, and the idea that it is better to bottle 

 milk in the street and to open the cans in the street, because, for- 

 sooth, some man might not sterilize his bottles. 



Now, we are coming to the proposition that all cows offered 

 for sale in the United States shall be tuberculin tested. Now, the 

 great trouble with that thing is this: We are up against the prac- 

 tical proposition of furnishing milk to the cities of this state at a 

 living price. It is not denied, as far as the contaminations are 

 concerned, that the tuberculin test is, perhaps, ninety-eight per 

 cent accurate, but I appeal to any of you gentlemen as to whether 

 there has been an adequate post mortem examination to prove how 

 accurate it is when it passes an animal. 



The facts are these: An animal passes to-day, and to-morrow 

 she does not pass. I tuberculin test my herd to-day, and next 

 year I test it, and the next year I test it, and an animal is thrown 

 out with lesions that it does not need a veterinarian to tell are old 

 lesions. Those lesions exist and the cow passes test twice or three 

 times anyway. I can mention numbers of instances in this state 

 where men who had kept their herds absolutely clean came up 

 against the proposition of a twenty-five per cent reaction. 



Now, gentlemen, the proposition before us is that all cattle 

 must be tuberculin tested. As a milk producer, I want to get 

 behind that idea that, as far as practical work goes, there is only 

 one safeguard that will allow the City of New York or any other 

 city to have milk at a reasonable cost, and that is proper pas- 

 teurization. 



In the last few years cows have cost us an advance of from 

 $40 to $80. You test these cows and they will cost us from $100 

 to $150 and cannot be had. You test the cows of the State of 

 New York to-morrow and only allow those cattle to be put into the 

 dairies that pass the tuberculin test, and there aren't cows enough 

 in the State of New York to produce your milk. There aren't cat- 

 tle enough in the United States to produce your milk. And if you 

 think the farmers of the State of New York and the farmers of 

 the other states are fools enough to go on and do it merely pro 



