xxi PROCEDURES TO OBTAIN PURE MILK 409 



tensively advocated as the solution of the problem, and indeed 

 may be said to be the solution offered by the milk trade itself. 

 This attitude is clearly expressed in the following remarks of 

 Mr. J. Sadler (Secretary of the Cheshire Milk Producers' 

 Association), in a discussion upon the reform of the milk 

 supply : l 



He was quite prepared to admit that the ideal of what con- 

 stitutes clean milk production was too low, but it was a process of 

 education, and on the best managed farms the ideal already existed. 

 They might at present be considered isolated farms, but he did not 

 admit that they were few in number, and, in fact, they were 

 growing more numerous every day. In his opinion this was the 

 direction in which they, as representing the public health authorities, 

 should develop. . . . They could not do without the dairy farmer, 

 therefore they should approach him reasonably, encourage him, and 

 carry him with them, and they would not find him half so black as 

 he was painted. The dairy farmer, like every other farmer, moved 

 slowly, like the processes of nature with which he was associated, 

 but he was open to conviction, and once he was persuaded that the 

 way they pointed was the right way right also in the public 

 interests, then he would move with them, for if he was slow he 

 was equally sure. They should not aim at displacing the present 

 methods of milk production and distribution, but should aim rather 

 at perfecting them. 



This was spoken in 1905. Are the conditions of the 

 milk trade any better to-day ? Speaking generally there has 

 been no improvement, or, if any, it has been extremely slight. 

 The structural conditions are probably somewhat improved, 

 but the general manurial pollution of milk appears to have 

 but little diminished. It is rather difficult to see why the 

 farmer should have improved in any of the districts where 

 sanitary pressure is not put upon him. In the great majority 

 of rural districts such sanitary pressure is not employed, and 

 as he gets the same price for dirty as for clean milk, there is 

 no reason why he should feel that the way of cleanliness was 

 the right way. 2 



1 Public Health, 1905, vol. xvii. p. 427. 



2 The idea that the average cowkeeper will of his own accord, and with- 

 out outside pressure, supply a clean milk instead of a manure - laden one, 

 cannot be seriously entertained by those who have extensively discussed this 

 matter with him. The writer has met with a few cowkeepers who could be 

 moved along the way of sanitary cleanliness as regards their cows by gentle 

 suasion and the light of sweet reason, but very few compared with the number 



