I 
American Agriculturist, November 3,1923 
297 
Thrills, in the Dairy Business 
Saving a Baby’s Life Was One of Therh—A Wednesday Evening Radio Talk 
By R. W. BALDERSTON 
Secretary, Philadelphia Inter-State Dairy 
Council 
health education, local and national, and in¬ 
stitute and stimulate many new movements, 
placing particular emphasis, quite naturally, 
on proper nutrition. 
Their educational platform covers the 
eight “health rules,” but for the sake of 
efficiency they specialize in methods of teach¬ 
ing children and adults proper food selection. 
Because of this broad platform of the 
Dairy Councils, their work has the support 
and cooperation of national and local health 
organizations throughout the land. 
In June, 1923, the Dairy Councils had 102 
selected and specially trained workers in 
carrying out their program. These were 
T HE dairy business looks very com¬ 
monplace to the outsider, and its ex¬ 
acting daily demands upon the time 
and attention do certainly tend to 
grind out the enthusiasm of those engaged in 
the business—be it on a lonely farm back in the 
hills or in a pasteurizing plant in a great city. 
But there are some thrilling moments even 
in a dairyman’s life, and some exalting ones, 
too. I shall never forget the first time that 
I fully realized how very, very closely con¬ 
nected with the health—yes, with the very 
life—of our children is the cow in some far¬ 
away pasture. 
I was managing a large farm in Chester 
County, Pa., producing a special grade of 
milk for the Philadelphia market. A son of 
a neighboring farmer had settled in a little 
suburban town between us and the city. 
He called me on the 
phone one night and 
begged me to send 
him daily some bottles 
of milk from our herd. 
H i s first-born was 
deathly sick and the 
doctor had found that 
the local milk supply 
was not of such a 
quality that the baby 
could assimilate it. 
We sent the milk in a 
special iced case and 
my thrill came later 
when the. proud par¬ 
ents called on us to 
show us their flourish¬ 
ing offspring and to 
give the milk from 
our farm all credit for 
the result. Yes, folks, 
there was satisfaction 
in that moment suffi¬ 
cient to pay for all the 
care and toil that our 
family had put into 
our business, d a y 
after day and year 
after year. 
All this, of course, 
happened many years 
ago. The baby is a 
full-grown man. To-day, thanks to the operating in the following well defined fields 
prompt application of scientific discoveries of activity: 
No use talking 1 , the older generation could spell and cipher better than the present, 
phasizing the importance of spelling by bringing back the old-fashioned spelling bee, is to 
be highly commended 
to thp milk business in all our cities and 
towns, we can get plenty of good, nourish¬ 
ing milk for out babies and ourselves from 
any reputable mfilk dealer or milk company. 
But the thrill remains with me. It stands 
1. Nutrition Department, conducting dem¬ 
onstrations of milk dishes, lectures and talks, 
poster and recipe contests, and special classes 
of undernourished children. 
2. Quality Control Department, engaged 
out in my memory even above my first pair in educational work with the milk producer 
of trousers, it is more satisfactory even and dealer to improve the quality of our 
than when, as )a seven year old, I proudly dairy products. 
displayed about; a pint of milk that I had 3. The Department of Health Dramatics, 
wrung from th(£ reluctant teats of a patient specializing in plays, stories and talks which 
old brindle, to 
whose tender mercies I was 
intrusted that I might “learn to milk.’ 
But the milk} 
thrill which I will remember 
emphasize the use of milk and the other 
health rules. 
4. Publicity Department furnishing mag- 
longest came this fall when the Dairy Coun- azine and newspaper articles and directing 
cil, with whichj I have been connected for advertising work with posters, billboards, 
three years, aqted as host for one day to newspapers and motion pictures, 
the World’s Dairy Congress during its visit The Dairy Council is now recognized by 
to Philadelphia, j all branches of the dairy industry as the one 
What is the I)airy Council? Organized, educational organization through which the 
financed, manage^ and operated in a coop- interests of all identified with the industry 
erative way, the Dairy Council furnishes a are promoted. 
medium through which to extend a knowl- It is impossible to estimate adequately the 
edge of the food importance of milk and milk results of Dairy Council work at the end of 
products, and through which there can be an a three year period, since its methods are 
interchange of viewpoints on the part of such that the effect of its efforts are con- 
producer, distribute! 1 and consumer. tinuous and cumulative, but we can, however, 
The Dairy Councils in the United States point out a few incidents which portray the 
operate as national health agencies, with results of some of our activities. Nutrition 
branches and local y - roup affiliations in all classes particularly emphasize results in im¬ 
parts of the country. The councils derive provement of health in the individual child, 
their funds from sub scriptions by the vari- One example out of many thousands will be 
ous dairy interests. They cooperate in given here: 
« 
Jennie, a pale listless girl, when weighed 
was 17 pounds or 15% per cent underweight. 
She entered a nutrition class in the sp mg. 
After ten weeks she had gained only v. le 
pound, but that was the start. She gaineu 
slowly, but steadily from then until school 
closed. Her mother “carried on” with her 
during the summer and in September when 
she returned to school she not only had put 
on 17 pounds, but had become an active, 
alert, happy girl. 
Health plays are utilized through the Dra¬ 
matic Department to arouse interest in and 
to stimulate enthusiasm for health practices. 
Many permanent health projects have re¬ 
sulted from these performances. The wide 
distribution of milk lunches in the schools 
can be traced in many cases to health plays. 
In Atlantic City, after the “Milk Fairies” 
play, the consumption 
of milk by school chil¬ 
dren doubled in one 
week. 
In addition to per¬ 
formances in schools, 
health plays have also 
been given in depart¬ 
ment stores, industrial 
plants, with Girl 
Scouts, Y. W. C. A., 
Y. M. C. A., and nu¬ 
trition camps. 
So, you see, October 
4, 1923, was a red-let¬ 
ter day for the dairy i n- 
dustry — particularly 
the fluid milk part of 
it, of Philadelphia and 
the vicinity. On that 
date literally the whole 
world, in the person 
of delegates to the 
World’s Dairy Con¬ 
gress, came to our old 
city to see the work of 
the Dairy Council and 
particularly of the 
Philadelphia Inter- 
State Dairy Council, 
the local unit of the 
National Dairy Coun- 
• cil movement. Every 
minute of that day—from 7 A. M. to 11 P. M. 
—was taken up by the actual demonstration 
of some phase of the work. The morning 
session in the large auditorium of the Fur¬ 
ness School showed the healthwork of the 
Dairy Council with school children and the 
intimate connection of milk and child health. 
Miss Sally Lucas Jean of the American Child 
Health Association, came over from New 
York and explained why the Dairy Council 
is, as it should be, a recognized health agency, 
and various council workers explained de¬ 
tails of methods and the results of three 
years of work—measured in terms of im¬ 
proved child health, adult efficiency and a 
fuller realization of the necessity of people 
consuming enough of milk and its products. 
In the evening you may have heard broad¬ 
cast the speeches given by Governor Pin- 
chot and others at the international dinner 
to 1,000 delegates and their families and 
friends from all over the world. 
That ivas a thrilling day for the milk pro¬ 
ducers and milk distributors of Philadelphia, 
for it proved to them that they had exercised 
sound judgment when at the suggestion of 
the Inter-State Milk Producers’ Association, 
a local Dairy Council had been formed. Their 
pioneer work had borne fruit. 
Em- 
“I consider the American Agriculturist 
the best farm paper I can take.”— Archie 
C. Stephens, Greenwood, N. Y. 
