New YorK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 445 
the amount of fat contained therein and use for ascertaining the 
amount of such fat what is known as the Babcock test, the 
bottles used in such test shall before such use be examined by 
the director of the New York Experiment Station at Geneva. 
If such bottles are found to be properly constructed and gradu- 
ated so as to accurately show the amount of fat contained in 
milk, each of them shall be legibly and indelibly marked S. B.” 
The director of the station knew nothing of the passage of 
this law until some time after it was placed on the statute books 
and for that reason was not prepared to comply with its pro- 
visions aS soon, nor to the extent desirable in a law of that 
class. Before we were able to get a marking device perfected 
that would comply with the provisions of the law, some bottles 
came with the request that they be returned at an early date. 
In order to accommodate these first applicants we resorted to the 
use of a copper tag with S. B. stamped on that and returned the 
tested bottles with the understanding that we should, as soon as 
we could, recall those bottles and properly mark them. Some 
of those bottles have been returned but the others are still out 
and should be returned and legally marked. We use for that 
purpose an air pressure sand blast and a stencil with the letters 
S. B. cut in it. 
The law as now worded is a step in the right direction, but 
other provisions should be added in order to cover the whole 
ground in such a way that there can be no misunderstanding of 
the requirements. The inspection should cover all Babcock 
bottles used to determine the per ct. of fat in the milk, whether 
the milk is purchased outright or divided on a coéperative plan. 
The pipette and all other glassware as well as the bottles should 
be tested and marked. The use of mutilated or falsified glass- 
ware should be forbidden under penalty severe enough to deter 
the shrewd maker from breaking off the tip of the pipette or 
similar dishonest practices in order to show a small percentage 
of fat and consequent large overrun of butter. This fraudulent 
manipulation of the test is one of the factors which has tended 
to give the impression that the system is not correct. A farmer 
