74 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 
state a few facts. Good butter cannot be made from impure milk, conse¬ 
quently good pure feed and pure water in abundance must be furnished the 
cow It is not wise in summer or winter to permit cows to drink from 
sloughs or stagnant water, but be furnished water from running streams or 
from the pump, or to wade in filth and mud to their necks to get to the 
pasture or through the pasture. Nor is it wise iu winter to permit cows to 
wade about in yards full of water, mud, or manure, or to stand in stables 
wet or muddy or with broken floors, or in anywise unsightly, or unclean, or 
offensive to tlie most delicate smell. 
Odors of all kinds, either animal or vegetable, must be excluded, and 
cows carrying their afterbirth should not remain in the flock. 
Cleanly Milking: After the feed and water has been attended 
to, and the stables properly lighted, ventilated and made warm in winter, 
the next important duty is cleanly milking. Yes, cleanly milking ! I can¬ 
not give you the one hundredth part of the uncleanly practices ot milkers, 
being for the most, persons who have no interest in the matter except to 
dash from cow to cow and get through the job as soon as possible. 
Yesterday after arriving in this city I visited the inspector of milk at 
the Condensing Factory, and asked him, shall I, in this convention, describe 
the dirty practices of milkers? Yes, Yes, he says, by all means, and when 
you have told all you can, the one-half is not told. 
Milking, How Done : Forty cows are to be milked; they have 
come from the pasture, in the spring, into the yards, after wading through 
deep mud holes in the pasture, and the yard has not been cleaned of manure 
for a year or more and they still wade into the stables with udders, sides, 
' flanks and bellys in the condition you would say they must be; four milkers 
commence; the cows need washing and careful cleaning; do they get it.'* No ! 
The first man commences and finds his hands at once full of muck; he 
throws it away—what does not go into the pail, and still goes on washing 
the cows teats with milk, taking care that all does not get safely into the 
pail. Number two, the next milker, finds his cow not so bad, and he goes 
on, taking no care to clean his cow of hanging dirt or lumps of manure, 
and he too, is soon dashing away with thumb and finger, dipping them in 
the milk every alternate stream, and when he is done with that cow, she is 
in the condition she should have been in when he commenced. Number 
three is milking a restless cow, and pail one-half full of milk, she raises her 
foot, puts it into the pail and forces it to the floor; the milk is not spilled ; 
the 5 foot is removed and big lumps of manure skimmed out with dirty 
fingers; milking resumed and milk emptied through the strainer in the can 
