Thirty-fourth Annual Convention. 



19 



The question was asked this morning as to how bacteria 

 get into milk. There are a thousand ways in which they get 

 into milk. We know they are small germs of plant life that re- 

 quire moisture, require warmth to grow, just the same as any 

 other plant, and if we furnish these conditions we are bound to 

 have large numbers in our milk. They get in through the air, 

 through dirt from the cow, through dirty hands of the milker, 

 dust of the stable, through milk utensils and various other ways, 

 flies, particles of dry manure. All those things contribute thous- 

 ands and thousands of bacteria to the milk and it is possible for 

 a single fly to carry a half million bacteria into milk. If he ib 

 a fairly clean fly he might not put in more than seven or eight 

 thousand, but a fly from the swill barrel is a pretty bad fellow. 

 So the bacteria runs in some of those samples of milk, and if 

 you stop tO' think over the care you have given the milk before 

 you sent it here, you can determine how some of the bacteria 

 got in. 



Another point is the acidity of milk; by acidity w^e mean 

 the real sourness. Olf course milk naturally is slightly acid, 

 contains about .07 per cent of 1 per cent of acidity but if it gets 

 up to .2 per cent or higher it shows there is something wrong, 

 it has either been kept too long or there are too many bacteria 

 in it, and so we make a point of acidity. Milk is perfect if it 

 does not go over .2 per cent and over that we make deductions ; 

 at .3 per cent the milk begins to^ taste sour but that rs a pretty 

 good indication of the way the milk has been handled, by deter- 

 mining whether acidity is high or low. 



General appearance of package and contents. If I had 

 time I would like tO' describe that matter fully. You know a 

 good many of the bottles we found in our markets have tin parts, 

 rubber parts and metal parts attached to them, which are difficult 

 to clean so we make deductions where we find them. The pack- 

 ages sent to this contest were perfect in that respect. 



Then we examine the milk for dirt and usually find that 

 in the bottom of the bottle. I regret to say half of the samples 

 here had more or less dirt, but from what some of the dairymen 

 told me I do not think that will ever happen again. That dirt 

 probably got in through the dirt on the cow or from dust in the 

 stable, or in a similar manner. In the contest we had in New 

 Hampshire one man in particular had a good deal of dirt in his 



