586 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



land Milk Producers' Union, and, as a step in this direction, 

 in a pamphlet issued by this union under the heading "What 

 milk producers want," we find, iu Section V., among the ob- 

 jects of the union, it is proposed "to insure better care by 

 peddlers in the distribution of milk." This is the entering 

 wedge ; it is the recognition of the necessity for some action 

 in the matter. The interests of both the producer and the 

 consumer are identified in this matter, and the sooner both 

 parties realize this fact, and co-operate with one another, the 

 better it will be for both. 



Among the many sources of contamination by which milk 

 may become infected, probably none is more serious than the 

 contamination of the water supply. In this connection, we 

 quote from the " Farmers' Bulletin," No. 43, from the 

 United States Department of Agriculture, on "The sewage 

 disposal on the farm." 



The chief dangers which threaten rural inhabitants are those 

 arising from polluted driulving water. This is infected from the 

 household excrement and barn-yard drainings, as will be described 

 further on, and its use leads iu the main to bowel disturbances, 

 typhoid fever and dysenteric affections. It miglit be claimed that 

 in an isolated homestead the danger is absent, because the night 

 soil from the healthy household cannot contain the germs of 

 ty[)lioid fever, and therefore the well water cannot receive them 

 from leaky cesspools and surface drainage This would be true if 

 the family lived secluded from other human beings. As the case 

 stands, there is much more communication than is at first thought 

 supposed. There is more or less coming and going of farm hands 

 and other hired help, of tramps, peddlers, etc. The farmer 

 travels more than formerly. He frequently visits neighboring 

 communities. The children go to school. As it has been shown, 

 there may be mild cases of typhoid fever passing unnoticed, 

 perhaps, in a farm hand, for example, who leaves on account of 

 ill health, and who has meanwhile, in his discharges, deposited the 

 germs of this disease on the premises. It is evident that isolation 

 nowadays does not exist except iu remote thinly settled regions, 

 and that disease germs may make themselves suddenly felt in an 

 unexpected manner in any farmhouse. 



There are other important reasons, however, why rural sanita- 

 tion should not be neglected. The health of the large communi- 

 ties of people who draw their food supply from the country is in a 



