xii BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



tion for the abolishment of the milk standard. A large 

 number of bills were introduced into the last Legislature, 

 covering almost every phase of the milk question. Some of 

 these, such as the law relating to milk inspection, were en- 

 acted into law. The committee on agriculture considered 

 carefully those relating to the abolishment or modification 

 of the standard, approaching the question with a great deal 

 of care and giving it an intelligent study, which reflects 

 great credit on the committee. After several months of 

 hearings and deliberations they recommended a bill, the idea 

 of which originated with the general agent of the Dairy 

 Bureau of this Board. In effect it provided that where milk 

 was taken from a producer and analysis of subsequent sam- 

 ples of known purity showed that the first milk was pure, 

 unadulterated milk, as it came from the cow, no prosecution 

 should follow. It also provided for the same exemption from 

 prosecution for the dealer who could prove that the milk was 

 the milk of a certain producer and in the original container. 

 This latter feature I believe to have been a mistake, as it is 

 my opinion that the milk dealer and peddler is amply able 

 to safeguard himself, and that such exemption gives too much 

 of a loophole for escape from responsibility under the stand- 

 ard law. This bill had a somewhat turl^ulent passage through 

 the Legislature, the Senate reversing itself several times on 

 the matter, but was finally killed on the enactment stage, an 

 unusual proceeding. If enacted into law it would have prac- 

 tically removed the principal objection which milk ])roducers 

 have to the milk standard, that they are liable to be brought 

 into court and branded with a criminal record without the 

 slightest intent to do wrong, and in many cases without the 

 slightest suspicion that their milk was not up to legal re- 

 quirements. In my judgment it would, in its working out, 

 have settled the milk standard question for twenty years, if 

 not for all time, and without the least injury to the consum- 

 ing public. 



I do not believe that the milk standard should be abolished 

 at this time, as it forms the only protection of the consumer 

 and ])r()du('or alike against a cci-laiu amouut of C(uuuier('i:il 

 fraud. There is a widespread iuqiression llint the milk stand- 



