Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 43.djvu/114

104 Here the dairy farmer was either injuring his own interests or some other fellow was hurting it. The intelligent producer realizes that anything that is done to injure the character of market milk injures the general trade. Were pure milk always placed on the market, a better price could be secured for it, and there would not be the extensive sale for patent baby foods and condensed milk that there now is. To remedy this evil it became necessary to treat milk in a measure as the fertilizers were treated, or, in other words, determine the character of milk by analysis. As in fertilizer control, so in milk inspection, Massachusetts was a pioneer worker. The first act to punish fraud in the sale of adulterated milk in Massachusetts was passed by the Legislature in 1856. This law was ineffective, so in 1859 a new law was enacted, which provided for the appointment of milk inspectors in towns and cities, whose duties it should be to detect adulteration of milk, and secure the conviction and punishment of offenders. This law has since been frequently amended and improved. At the present time the Massachusetts law requires all milk to contain at least thirteen per cent solids, and milk containing less than that amount is condemned. Since the Massachusetts law was first enacted the more progressive dairy States of the Union have passed laws to prevent deception in the sale of dairy products, and usually twelve per cent of solids is required in the milk sold in the market. The London (England) milk supply is carefully watched by inspectors. The Aylesbury Dairy Company of London is the largest of its kind in the world. During 1891 chemists analyzed 21,855 samples of the milk of this company, and found before delivery 12·75, during delivery 12·74, and after delivery 12·81 per cent solids, showing a very good grade of milk.

That substance which makes milk most palatable is the fat in it. Good milk should have four or five; cream, eighteen to twenty-five, and butter, eighty to eighty-five per cent of fat. Skim milk, or thin, insipid, disagreeable milk, contains a small amount of milk fat. When we speak of rich milk, we mean that which contains a large percentage of this substance. There are in the United States many thousands of cows, each of which does not produce over one fourth or one half the amount of butter it should. The claim is made that the average yield of our dairy cows is not over one hundred and twenty-five pounds of butter a year, whereas it should be three hundred pounds at the least. Some cows produce a much larger percentage of fat or butter in their milk than do others. The farmer should own the better