22 THE MARKETING OF WHOLE MILK 



It will be noticed that there is a wide divergence between 

 the results of the score cards and the bacterial count. If 

 we take the highest four scores according to the New York 

 City method, the ranks are respectively 30, 16, 18, and 13 

 as regards bacterial count; that is, milk produced on the 

 farm ranking highest according to the New York City 

 score card ranked thirtieth when subjected to the bac- 

 terial count test. The same station had already shown 

 that certain requirements exacted of dairymen did not 

 help in producing more sanitary milk.^ The United States 

 Department of Agriculture has shown that the amount 

 of sediment indicated by the sediment tester is no adequate 

 criterion of cleanliness, since the dairymen may strain out 

 the coarse particles of dirt by the use of cotton gauze 

 strainers.* Straining out filth does not make clean milk, 

 nor does clarification. But either may make it appear 

 clean, even when examined by means of a sediment tester. 

 On the other hand, germ content alone is also an unsafe 

 guide, for a great deal depends upon the kind of germs 

 present. 



It is now coming to be quite definitely accepted that, 

 given a reasonably low bacterial count as an indication of 

 decency in production and handling, the element of safety 

 can be added by pasteurization. When first introduced, 

 pasteurization was often practiced covertly on account of 

 public prejudice against it.' Gradually, however, the 

 leading dealers came to adopt the practice openly. One 

 Baltimore dealer pasteurized milk for infants as early as 

 1893, and "pasteurization was begun in Cincinnati in 1897, 

 in New York in 1898, in Philadelphia in 1899, ^^ ^^- Louis 



» Bui. 36s, p. 197. 



»U. S. Dept. of Agr. Bulletin 361. 



' Parker, H. N., City Milk Supply, p. 269. 



