52 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



unjust and unscientific. If a city or a State adopts a fat 

 standard for milk, it should certainly allow all who wish to 

 standardize their milk to that standard. If that is not to be 

 permitted, then every retailer of milk should be allowed and 

 compelled to set his own standard, and be held accountable 

 only to the living up to that self-imposed standard. 



Jersey milk standardized to 3 per cent fat is more valuable 

 as a food than the milk of a Hoi stein which tests only 3 per 

 cent naturally, because there will be an equal amount of fat 

 and a greater amount of sugar and protein in such milk ; and 

 to forbid such standardization, and prosecute those who prac- 

 tice it, smacks more of a desire to make a large and showy an- 

 nual report than a wish to safeguard the health or the purse 

 of the consumer. 



The absence of dirt in milk is of greater value than the 

 presence of fat over 3 ])er cent. 



The cause of had milk is something which every producer, 

 handler and consumer of milk should understand. That 

 there is a very vital connection between the cleanliness of milk 

 and the health of our children, no one who is informed can 

 deny. For convenience in study, the causes of poor milk 

 may be grouped under three heads : the cow ; the air ; bacteria. 



Under the first we must recognize that when the cow is 

 out of condition her milk is also out of condition; that to a 

 very considerable degree milk is not dead matter, but por- 

 tions of the living mother. It is well known to producers of 

 high-class infant-feeding milk that when cows have, for in- 

 stance, been injudiciously fed on something like green corn, 

 their bowels become excessively loose, which effect is trans- 

 mitted through the milk to infants consuming such milk. 

 Any condition in the food which would cause the opposite 

 condition in the foster mother would cause a similar opposite 

 condition in the child. Again^ though a cow herself be 

 thoroughly healthy, if the food consumed is ill flavored, like 

 rye or wheat pasture, or silage not properly made, the j^un- 

 gent and disagreeable characters will be transmitted to the 

 milk, and cause the sensitive child, who soon becomes an 

 expert judge, to refuse the food it so much needs. It is 



