ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 12& 



the naked eye. The number oi* bacteria in milk that has been carelessly 

 produced and cared for is something enormous, there often being many- 

 millions in a single drop. Experiments have shown that the contamina- 

 tion of milk as usually produced my y be reduced over 100 per cent by- 

 extreme cleanliness. Many people think all bacteria are our enemies^ 

 associating them only with disease. Yet the fact is the great majority are 

 harmless and many are our friends; indeed we could not live without 

 them. They play a very important part in agriculture and are absolutely? 

 essential in the manufacture of fine flavored butter. Bacteria, like manp 

 other things, are all right in their place, but their place is not in the milk . 

 pail. Therefore let us produce pure milk as free from contamination as 

 possible, allowing the buttermaker to add his friends at the proper tinm 

 and in the proper amount he desires without troubling him with Ms- 

 enemies. 



Milk to be clean and pure must be taken from healthy cows kept under- 

 sanitary conditions. Clean milk v, ill not only remain sweet longer, but as. 

 every one knows is a more wholesome food. If it were more fully real- 

 ized that milk is a food and not simply a commercial commodity it would 

 seem that dairymen would not allow filth to get into it. 



There are four principal ways that milk becomes contaminated and 

 it is subjected to them all before it leaves the stable. 



FIRST, THE COW.— This is the greatest source of contamination.. 

 When cows are kept in a filthy stable as is too frequently the case, thejr 

 are often covered with dust at milking time, and their sides, flanks, bellies*, 

 and udders plastered with manure. Cows cannot be milked in this condi- 

 tion without seriously contaminating the product. There is a constant 

 sprinkling of fine particles of dirt and dust into the milk, the greater part, 

 of which is so fine that it is never seen. Sometimes there is so much of 

 this filth that it is plainly visible on top of the foam after the milking is, 

 completed. Often the filthy habit milking with wet hands is practiced and" 

 the dirty milk is constantly dropping into the pail. 



These are such common occurrences in milk production that they do 

 not shock us. Who would think of eating any other article of food covered 

 with a sprinkling of cow dung, and yet this is the way most milk is pro- 

 duced. If any new article of food was produced as milk is no one woultfe 

 think of touching it. 



