No. 4.] BABCOCK MILK TESTER. 305 



The purchaser of milk who has only the Babcock test can- 

 not detect adulterated milk where the fat is of satisfactory 

 quantity ; nothing will do that l)ut a complete analysis, 

 which discloses the ratio between the fat and the solids not 

 fat ; but where the purchaser suspects any trouble of this 

 kind the use of the lactometer, which gives the specific 

 gravity, will be of assistance. Normal milk should have a 

 specific gravity of about 1.032; watered milk would be 

 less. 



The principles explained above illustrate the dangerous 

 competition to which honest farmers have to sul)mit when 

 whole milk is adulterated with skim-milk. We detect added 

 water by a reduction in the solids not fat ; but when skim- 

 milk is added to whole milk the amount of solids not fat re- 

 mains without much change. A milk containing 4 per cent 

 or al)ove of fat can receive a small admixture of skim-milk 

 and the detection would be very difiicult. We allude to 

 this because there is strong suspicion in the minds of many 

 that some of the large surplus of sale milk in Boston is due 

 to the extending of whole milk with skim-milk. Every can 

 of skim-milk which is used in this way creates a surplus of 

 one can of whole milk, for which farmers get only the butter 

 value. The milk contractors can hardly refuse to sell skim- 

 milk to those who ai)[)ly for it, with the plausible story of 

 having to sup[)ly a leaker or something of that kind. Un- 

 questionably there is considerable food value in skim-milk 

 of which the public would be deprived were this by-product 

 to be excluded from the market, but we are sometimes in- 

 clined to believe that the injury caused by the fraudulent 

 use of skim-milk is greater than the benefit which the pub- 

 lic receives from the food value which there is in the skim- 

 milk that finds its way to market. 



Milk is sometimes tampered with by dishonest employees, 

 who remove the top of a can after it has stood for some 

 time, and then fill the can with water. Unquestionably 

 some honest farmers have been prosecuted for such de- 

 linquencies of employees, in accordance with the well- 

 recognized rule to which business men of every kind are 

 subjected, that the principal is responsible for the acts of 

 his asent. Where a farmer makes a careful study, by the 



