92 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



BETTER MILK SUPPLY, 



Russell S. Smith 

 Milk Specialist U. S. Department of Agriculture. 



The dairyman who puts on the market a clean, wholesome 

 product becomes a benefactor of the commonwealth in which 

 he does business; on the other hand, unclean, unwholesome and 

 disease-carrying milk gnaws at the very marrow of the Nation; 

 it is the foundation of the high death rate among the infants, 

 and it may be the source of epidemics of disease which destroy 

 the health and endanger the life of entire communities. A 

 dairyman who produces and sells unclean milk in insanitary sur- 

 roundings, or who allows cream to run through a separator that 

 has not been cleaned, commits an insidious act against the Na- 

 tion. 



The pure food wave that has swept the country for the past 

 eight years, the educational work that has been done along the 

 line of sanitary milk in the press, in the schools, in institutes of 

 farmers, dairymen and milk dealers, the passage and enforce- 

 ment of laws and regulations by the state and city authorities, 

 and the centralization of the commercial handling and distrib- 

 uting of milk in our large cities, all have had their good effect. 



But when w6 come to take into consideration the average 

 run of milk produced on the average farm, sold from the milk 

 wagon or in a dark corner of the grocery store, we must admit 

 that there is room for vast improvement, and we ask the ques- 

 tion, "How can it be done?" 



The most successful way of attracting the interest of the 

 average farmer or other business man in improving his meth- 

 ods of doing business, is that of showing him what the suggested 

 improvement means to him in dollars and cents. It is compara- 

 tively easy for our cow-testing associations to convince the 

 dairyman that the scrub cow that produces not more than 150 



