Thirty-fourth Annual Convention. 



177 



Scoring Milk. With higher ideals of food products and a 

 better knowledge of their composition has come more careful 

 methods of judging them. The commercial value of milk and 

 cream, for example, has until recently been rated by the City 

 boards of health and by the milk dealer on the basis of fats and 

 solids they contained. If they reached a certain standard in 

 respect to these qualities and contained no preservatives, no ques- 

 tions were asked. Now we are beginning to go further in this 

 matter and to consider the sanitary condition of these products 

 and standards are being established for bacteria, for foreign mat- 

 ter, for pus cells, temperature, etc. In other words, cleanliness 

 is considered a commercial quality. Naturally the consumer 

 should be most interested in these standards for judging milk, 

 but he is quite helpless in any attempt he may make to bring 

 about improvements, as considerable time is required to make 

 efficient tests and simple appliances are lacking. 



We will now take up the method used in scoring the milk in 

 this contest : Flavor. You will notice on the score-card that 

 flavor is the first point to be considered. The most points (40) 

 are given to this, for the reason that it is considered the most 

 important. Unpalatable milk or cream is, practically, of no 

 value as an article of food; on the other hand, if these products 

 contain a low percentage of fat or an excessive number of bacteria 

 and still have a good flavor, they may be utilized and in fact a 

 good deal of milk and cream of this character is used. Hence 

 it is apparent that flavor is of the first importance. This is also 

 recognized in butter and cheese, where flavor is usually given 

 45 points out of 100. Clean milk possesses little flavor or odor. 

 If well supplied with fat, however, it may be described as rich, 

 clean, sweet and pleasant. Slight contamination can often be 

 detected more readily by the sense of smell than by taste. Flavors 

 of the cow stable, silage feeds, soaps, etc., are often met with in 

 milk. 



The milk exhibited in this contest scored well in flavor. 

 Odors of the cow stable could be detected in a few samples, but 

 on the whole the flavor was generally good. The best sample 

 scored 36^ points out of a possible 40, and the poorest 34. 



Composition. Under this head is included the percentage 

 of fat and solids not fat. Fortunately these two things are quite 

 easily determined in the laboratory by the Babcock Test and Lac- 



