39 



the average hired man in grooming two or three animals with the curry 

 comb and brush. 



With the stanchions and cross chain already described the cows can 

 be made to arise and remain standing while the udder and flanks are 

 cleaned, washed if need be, and thoroughly wiped, and left in a damp 

 but not wet condition. If clean milk is to be drawn there must be no 

 dirt or loose skin left upon the cow or upon the milker's hands that can 

 by any means get into the pail. 



A good pail to use can be made b}' any tinsmith and should be care- 

 fully and sraoothlj' soldered. There should be soldered upon the top a 

 cover with a round opening of not more than 6^ inches in diameter, into 

 which is placed and not fastened a strainer dish 7 inches across the top 

 and 6 inches across the bottom. This strainer should be a tin dish with 

 a bottom mesh of tine copper wire. At each milking two thin layers 

 of sterilized absorbent cotton, the fibre of one layer across the fibre of 

 the other, should be placed in the dish, and over this sterilized strainer 

 cloth, which should come up and over the sides of the dish and be 

 secured by a ring of tin snugly fitting the inside of the dish. Care must 

 be taken to have the dish not less than 2i inches deep and the ring 

 inside 3 inches deep, thus projecting somewhat above the top of the dish, 

 otherwise the milk will be liable to spatter. At the side of the pail and 

 as near the top as can be placed there should be a short spout for 

 emptying, and this should be kept covei'ed with a cap when the pail is 

 in use, this cap being removed only when necessary to pour out the milk. 

 The pad of cotton forms a perfect strainer for minute chance dirt which 

 has thus far escaped the utmost care, and also as soon as wet it practi- 

 cally seals the milk from the stable air. It is a safeguard from con- 

 tamination by flies and should be thrown away at the end of the milking. 

 Such a pad costs about ^ of a cent, and, properly used, will last while 

 milking from 10 to 15 cows. There should be no feeding or raising of 

 dust in the stable just before or during milking time. 



The milk once drawn should be taken immediately to the milk room, 

 which should always be outside the stable, and preferably though not 

 necessarily outside the barn, and should, with all utensils, be kept scru- 

 pulously clean, and in summer time thoroughly protected from flies. 

 The milk should here be aerated and cooled at once to 40 degrees F. or 

 below. If cream is separated the same practices regarding cleanliness 

 must be observed, and the cream at once cooled and bottled. Milk or 

 cream thus produced and kept at proper temperature I have personally 

 known to keep i?i x>^'>'fect condition ten days or more. 



All this may seem an exceedingly difficult task, it is so different from 

 old customs, but it is essential. Compare it, for instance, with daily 

 removing manure and spreading it on the land, a practice often recom- 

 mended which I do not condemn if a person wants and can aff'ord to do it 

 that way. But the time taken up in harnessing and unharnessing for 

 one load when it would take no longer to do it for twenty loads, and the 

 more or less wasteful practice of applying manure at times when it can- 

 not readily be incorporated with the soil, but must be subject, for a 



