NEW YORK MILK COMMITTEE 103 



couraged by widening the opportunity for adulteration. So far 

 as the consumer's interest is concerned, it makes little differ- 

 ence whether water is added to milk through a dipper by hand 

 after the milk leaves the cow or whether the animal is made the 

 instrument of the unholy practice. It is safe to predict that 

 if this retrograde change is permitted to stand, we shall have 

 within a few years many hundred more herds of cows produc- 

 ing milk containing less than 12 per cent of solids than ever 

 before. It is a special application of the general law that 

 water seeks its own level. 



(4) Any condition that lowers the standard composition of 

 a food product increases its cost to the consumer. Milk, 

 normal or otherwise, containing 11.50 per cent of solids has 

 less value for the consumer than normal milk containing 12 per 

 cent of solids. The effect is in reality to increase the cost of 

 milk to consumers. In the recent political campaign the high 

 cost of living was skillfully used as an important factor in in- 

 fluencing consumers to express their disapproval of present 

 conditions without any special reference to actual causes. It 

 is somewhat surprising that the relation of this recent act of 

 legislation to increased cost of living was not discovered and 

 utilized by spellbinders to promote still farther the confusion 

 of those responsible. 



(5) The change was brought about in the special interest 

 of comparatively few milk producers ; it was essentially a de- 

 mand by a few that all other producers and all consumers per- 

 mit a change which is against the larger interests of the many. 



(6) In this connection it should be said that the legal re- 

 quirement of & per cent of fat and 12 per cent of solids as 

 the minimum requirement for pure milk has been shown by 

 long experience to be practicable and useful and reasonably 

 efficient. This should be restored as soon as possible. It must 

 also be fully recognized that no definition or minimum stand- 

 ard of an article so variable in composition as cow's milk can 

 by any possibility of human ingenuity be so devised as to give 

 complete satisfaction to all producers and consumers. 



We believe that the time is fast approaching, if it is not 

 already come, when our long-used method of regulating the 

 composition of pure milk can be advantageously supplemented 

 by introducing a method which permits the sale of milk under 



