426 BOARD OF AGEICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



ducing such milk must ultimately be recompensed for their 

 efforts. 



Furthermore, if the milk produced for the Boston market 

 could be delivered at the stations in condition such as to do 

 away with pasteurizing, rectifying, etc., it should so reduce 

 the expense of handling that a better allowance could be 

 meted out to the farmers by the contractors. An improved 

 product also means greater consumption, hence increased 

 market. The consumer should be willing to pay a fair price 

 for clean milk. A rise of 1 cent per quart per day means 

 $3.65 per year, or $1.21 per person, on the basis of two-thirds 

 of a pint, the milk consumption per capita in the large cities, 

 as reported last year by the United States Department of 

 Agriculture, or practically $G per year for a family of five per- 

 sons. What head of a family would not give $6 per year to 

 insure milk made under sanitary conditions ? It might mean 

 a yearly sacrifice of 60 10-cent cigars, or 40 15-cent drinks 

 of whiskey, or even 120 glasses of beer, or some other six- 

 dollar sacrifice, but the saving of doctor's bills and increased 

 health of children ought to be a sufficient reward. 



About the year 1814 distilleries were started in the United 

 States, and with them came the disposition of the by-product 

 *'slop" by feeding it to cows huddled together in close, 

 unsanitary stables, usually in or near the large cities. The 

 result of this and other unsanitary conditions was a quality 

 of milk which wrought havoc among the consumers. The 

 mortality among children under five years of age in Phila- 

 delphia in 1814 was around 25 per cent, and in Boston not 

 far from 30 per cent of the total deaths. As the distillery and 

 brewing business developed, by 1840, among children of like 

 age in New York and Philadelphia, the mortality had reached 

 over 50 per cent of the total deaths, and in Boston^ over 40 

 per cent. These figures were held with more or less varia- 

 tion foi- a number of years. The report of the Imard of 

 health of the city of Boston for 1904 shows the gradual im- 

 provement during the last thirty years in the care and feed- 

 ing of children in that city by the following mortality fig- 

 ures : 1875, 43.84 per cent; 1880, 39.26 per cent; 1885, 



* Mostly breweries near Boston. 



