142 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



con replied, "O, never mind that, you'll be dry enough when you 

 get into the pulpit and get to preaching." I will refrain from 

 going into statistics for fear of your rendering a similar ver- 

 dict. 



In the analysis of this question we are forced to acknowl- 

 edge that there are some evils existing to be remedied, and in 

 your state, through the enforcement of laws already on your 

 statutes, enacted by wise statesmen long before their time was 

 entirely occupied cleaning house, many of the dark spots have 

 been removed and many evils eradicated ; and while the greatest 

 responsibility should and does rest on the dairymen, I believe 

 there have been some conditions that tended to possibly excuse 

 to some extent the carelessness and negligence on his part in the 

 care of milk on the farm. There has not been sufficient reward 

 offered for efficiency nor punishment for neglect. Milk and cream 

 have been measured by the standard of color and per cent of but- 

 ter fat, and in some instances the only requirement on the part 

 of the purchaser of milk was that it must be white, and the man- 

 ufacturer of butter has in too many instances paid as much for 

 rotten cream as for sweet, and in view of the necessary care and 

 work to prepare good cream and keep it sweet, as a matttr of fact 

 there was a premium on rotten cream — because it took less work 

 to prepare it. There was a greater profit in it than good cream. 

 The supreme penalty for scattering the germs of disease through 

 the sale of milk, and starting epidemics of smallpox and typhoid 

 fever has been the necessity of finding another milk market, or 

 separating the milk and putting the cream on the market to be 

 made into butter. Each year there are thousands of victims of 

 the White Plague, among whom the seeds of consumption have 

 been sown by the distribution of milk, the philanthropist contin- 

 ues to build and endow tuberculosis hospitals and the dairyman's 

 conscience is eased by the remembrance that he drank the same 

 kind of milk when he was a boy that he is selling now and there 

 is nothing the matter with it. Is it any wonder that the care of 

 milk on the farm has had but little or no attention? There is 

 another reason for neglect in this particular. Until recently the 



