1904.] 



Milk and Butter Sampling. 



429 



ways to foster and support the dairy farming industry. The 

 Government has appointed an Instructor, and also maintains an 

 agent in England to superintend and assist the export of dairy 

 produce from Sweden. The State also provides instruction in 

 this branch of agriculture in both the higher and lower agricul- 

 tural schools, and grants pecuniary aid to butter-testing and 

 cheese exhibitions. The agricultural societies appoint migra- 

 tory teachers, and give exhibitions and grants to schools. The 

 migratory teachers, now styled dairy experts, are generally men, 

 but some of the societies have dairy-instructresses as well. 



The question of milk adulteration and the taking of samples 

 for analysis under the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts has been 

 attended with certain difficulties which have 

 Milk and Butter tended to reduce the number of samples 

 taken in certain quarters. One of these 

 difficulties, as is pointed out in the Annual Report of the 

 Intelligence Division of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries 

 for 1903,* has arisen from the practice of some County Councils 

 of arranging with the Urban District Councils for samples 

 taken by the sanitary inspectors of the District Councils to be 

 submitted to the Public Analyst appointed by the County 

 Council — the expense of analysis being defrayed wholly or 

 in part by the County Council. As, however, the question has 

 been raised as to whether the County Council is justified in 

 paying the expenses in connection with samples taken by 

 an officer not under its direction, some modification of arrange- 

 ments has been necessary in certain districts. In Essex, the 

 Urban District Councils have for the most part ceased to take 

 samples, since it has become necessary for them to bear the 

 whole cost of analysis. Similar complications have affected the, 

 execution of the Acts in the county of Durham. 



A second circumstance which has helped to check the 

 activity of sampling officers is the difficulty of dealing with 

 milk adulteration. Formerly, the Public Analyst of any district 



[CV. 2187. Price 3*] 



