ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 81 



Q : — What is the price they get in Washington for this milk, 

 the commercial milk? 



A : — The average is eight cents a quart. Some is sold for 

 ten cents specially selected milk. 



Q : — Does it test 4 per cent ? 



A : — Hardly four per cent. 



Q: — What is the bacteria count? 



A : — Something like New York. 39 million in some places. 

 An inspector brought in ten samples of milk picked up at random, 

 and nine out of ten had quite a quantity of foreign matter in the 

 bottom, you could see it, hay, manure, bedding, etc. We filtered 

 that through a small bunch of cotton and looked at it through 

 the glass, and you would wonder that you could ever use such 

 milk on your tables, and yet we are doing it every day. 

 If that was shown up in the water, we would not drink it, but in 

 milk it goes. 



Q:' — What do farmers get for their milk at wholesale, 

 this eight cent quality ? 



A : — Four cents a quart. I think the farmer is getting all 

 that kind of milk is worth. That is my opinion. He has no 

 kick coming on the price. We want -to get our milk and butter 

 and cheese, and get it labeled in such a way that the consumer will 

 know what he is buying. If milk contains millions of bacteria, 

 dairies that score low, that is low-class milk. It is not worth 

 a high price, but if a dairy is scoring 75 or 80, and taking 

 special pains o make clean milk, advertise him and let 

 the consumer know what he is doing. I believe we ought to en- 

 courage the good ones and discourage the bad ones. We never 

 hear about our good dairies. Yet your neighbor who is mak- 

 ing no effort to make clean milk, insanitary, low per cent of fat, in 

 the same market gets the same price, is not much encouragement 

 for improvement when things are that way. The score card is 

 going to work out and improve the conditions of things I be- 

 lieve. 



Q : — The poor dairyman is injuring the public taste for milk? 



A : — He is. One poor dairy will go a long ways if the con- 

 sumer hears of it. I tell you dairymen, you cannot afford to 



