UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
BULLETIN No. 356 
Contribution from the Bureau of Animal Industry 
A. D. MELVIN, Chief 
Washington, D. C. 
PROFESSIONAL PAPER 
March 7, 1916 
MILK AND CREAM CONTESTS. 
By Ernest Kelly, in Charge of Market Milk Investigations, and L. B. Cook and 
J. A. Gamble, Market Milk Specialists, Dairy Division. 
CONTENTS. 
Page 
Introduction 
National contests 
How contests are conducted . 
Educational features 
List of exhibitions 
Page. 
Average scores of recent contests 15 
B eneflts of milk contests to dairymen 17 
Extracts from letters 18 
Suggestions for production of contest milk. . . 19 
INTRODUCTION. 
Among those engaged in the production of sanitary milk there is 
an axiom that '^education accomplishes more than legislation." To 
a certain point law can be applied; glaringly insanitary conditions 
and willful wrongdoing can be severely dealt with, but after a certain 
degree of cleanliness has been reached much of the subsequent 
improvement must be based upon the incentive offered the producers 
to go to more trouble and expense to improve the product. 
For the purpose of teaching producers the fundamentals of clean- 
milk production, as well as offering them an incentive, the plan of 
holding milk and cream contests was devised. On February 14-24, 
1906, during the National Dairy Show in Chicago, 111., the first milk 
and cream contest was held. A tentative score card was devised 
for rating the samples, and from time to time, as defects were demon- 
strated, this card has been modified. From the beginning rapid 
progress has been made and in the nine years from February, 1906, 
to February, 1915, 87 such contests have been judged by members 
of the Dairy Division, Bureau of Animal Industry, United States 
Department of Agriculture. 
In March, 1907, with the behef that these contests would aid 
greatly in improving the milk supply of a city, the first city milk 
Note, — This bulletin is of interest to dairymen generally, and especially to those who are engaged in 
Improving the output of their establishments, 
22097°— Bull. 356—16 1 
