104 THE COMMON SENSE OF THE MILK QUESTION 



he said, "but I cannot get Joe made over." Joe 

 was the hired man, reputed to be the best milker 

 and stableman for many miles around, and other 

 farmers in the neighborhood would be very glad to 

 get him if they could, at quite high wages. As for 

 getting a laborer who could milk cows and who would 

 take all the precautions necessary to insure the purity 

 of the milk, understanding why the precautions were 

 taken, such good fortune could not be hoped for. 

 Why, it would take a college graduate to be a milk- 

 man! And truly, the difficulty of getting efficient 

 and intelligent labor at any price which the farmer 

 can ever hope to pay is an important aspect of the 

 problem. 



But let us return to the milk which we saw our 

 friend BiU draw from Farmer Jackson's cows. 

 Two miles from the farm is the little Erie railway 

 station, upon the platform of which the cans of milk 

 stand, without anything to keep them cool, waiting 

 for the milk train. Then, when the "milk special" 

 comes along, they are loaded into close, stuffy re- 

 frigerators, very inadequately supplied with ice, and 

 taken to the city. And during all this time the 

 bacteria multiply as only bacteria can. 



For, as we have already observed, there is no fear 

 of race suicide among the bacteria that grow in milk. 



