ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASiSOOIATTON. 137 



in court, I think T can bring proof that will satisfy any reason- 

 able person that unclean surroundings injure the milk. I 

 know some will take tlie position that the milk takes it in 

 during the process of milking and that it does not come 

 through the animal, but I remember a case of which old Dr. 

 Taft told me years ago, where the milk of a herd became bad 

 and they traced it down and found the carcass of a dead 

 animal in the pasture, and the carcass was removed and the 

 milk was afterwards all right. Of course in that case the 

 milk could not have absorbed it, for the reason that the cows 

 were not milked within eighty or a hundred rods of where 

 the carcass was. It was the cow herself that was exposed to 

 it. There are many things along this line to be learned, and 

 if a person wants to satisfy himself let him set the milk in an 

 open vessel where it will be exposed to undesirable surround- 

 ings and you can soon convince yourself on that point. Set 

 it in the vegetable cellar or out by the hog pen, or any place 

 where there is a strong odor, and then take and warm up 

 that milk to 110 or 115 degrees, so that there is a vapor passes 

 from it and you can get it by the nose, and tell where that 

 milk has been exposed. Our patrons do need to be taught 

 along this line. There are many of them who really believe 

 they are doing all right, the best they know how, and there 

 are many more who fail to do as well as they know how to do. 

 Of course, there are two sides to this question. There is the 

 creamery man's side and there is the patron's side, and there 

 are rights on both sides. We have heard from some of the 

 creamery men. I hope the patrons will take up the subject, 

 and eventually we will get closer together, make a stronger 

 team, accomplish better results. We would certainly be able 

 to make a higher grade of butter, and we must do that. Six 

 years ago. Dr. Bernstein, the inventor of the DeLaval sep- 

 arator, said to me, "When you people learn to make as fine 

 goods in the United States as we do in Sweden, you are 

 going to be able to throw us clean out of the English market." 

 If he had thrown a bombshell in front of me I could not have 

 been more surprised. I asked him, "What is the lowest price 

 you get for your butter in the English market." This was in 

 the month of June. He says, "Twenty-five cents." Our Elgin 

 market at that very time, I think, was eighteen or nineteen 



