Necessity for Cleanliness in Milkers. 
121 
Milkers . — After cleaning the cows the men should wash 
their hands with soap and warm water. They should then put 
on their milking aprons, which should be made of a coarse 
washing material, when they will be ready to commence work. 
A pail of water and a towel and soap should be brought into 
the cowshed, and between milking each cow the men should 
again wash their hands. This may be thought too much to 
expect. I can only say that my own men have done it for 
years without making any complaint. 
Although the cows and men under such regulations should 
be clean, yet even with the greatest care it is difficult to 
prevent particles of dust from finding its way into the milk 
during the process of milking. To prevent this, I have 
followed the practice obtaining in the Channel Islands of 
milking through dairy muslin ; but a gauze strainer will 
probably do equally well. The Channel Islands milking pails 
are shaped like a jug, with a handle and wide rim, the 
diameter of the rim being about eight inches. Over this is 
placed a piece of clean dairy muslin which is wound round the 
handle to keep it in position. No straw or dust can thus get 
into the milk, and if any is seen on the muslin during milking 
it can be removed at once ; so that, as far as the eye can see, 
nothing impure can get into the milk pail at all. 
It goes without saying that milk should not be left in the 
cowsheds but taken at once to the dairy, where it should 
be again strained through muslin before being passed through 
the refrigerator, or separator, as the case may be. 
Dry milkers are preferable to those who milk with wet hands. 
Dairy utensils . — All the churns, pails, &c., in use in a 
dairy must of course be kept clean ; but where milk is sent by 
rail and the usual pattern of churn is used, dirt may find its 
way into the milk, as the milk sometimes overflows and runs 
back again into the churn. 
Railway churns should be fitted with tight covers which 
should also be padlocked. There is, I understand, no objection 
to this on the part of the Railway Companies, provided the 
tare is conspicuously stamped on the outside of the churn. 
It is not my province to recommend any particular make 
of churn, but I believe there are churns on the market which 
would fulfil these conditions. 
In making these suggestions with a view to ensure that dirt 
may be kept out of milk I must not be taken as expressing an 
opinion that the milk usually sent out from dairy farms 
in England is “ diluted with filth ” ( Daily Graphic , August 
28 , 1906 ), or that it is responsible for the numerous ailments 
attributed to it. I know little or nothing of the milk imported 
from abroad, except from what I saw and heard on two 
