1st. Do you believe in having a milk standard?

2d. Your reasons for the same?

3d. If you do not believe in a milk standard, would you advocate a law requiring milk vendors to guarantee the amount of fat in the same sold by them, leaving it to them to specify the amount?

4th. If you do not believe that such a law would be productive of as good results as one having a milk standard, please give your reasons.

5th. If you do believe that such a law would be as good, if not better, than a milk standard, please give your reasons.

6th. State what, if any, benefit has been derived by the adoption of your present milk standard.

This communication I sent to the various States, and have received replies as follows:

Iowa.

Question. Do you believe in a State having a milk standard? Answer. I most certainly do.

Question. Your reasons for same?

Answer. The good results which have been obtained since the law was enacted and put in force by the proper officers of Iowa should convince anyone of the necessity and wisdom of a law similar to the one in force in this State. Although the law falls short of accomplishing the full results that should be obtained, insomuch as it does not provide that standard milk shall contain a certain per cent. of solids, but simply that it shall be clean, wholesome, not adulterated or skimmed milk, but must contain three per cent. or more of butter fat. Even with this defect the law has improved the quality of milk sold in our State from year to year, so that the present year will show an average of about four per cent. butter fat from samples taken, numbering about six thousand. These samples were all collected by State milk inspectors, located in cities having more than ten thousand inhabitants, from the milk dealers operating wagons, depots and stores. The city milk patron, having no way of determining the quality of milk sold, may be termed an innocent purchaser and, without a law guaranteeing to him milk of a certain standard, he would be at all times at the mercy of

the dealer; the honest dealer would be driven out of business through the competition of the dishonest one. When we take into consideration that the larger part of this supply as sold in our cities is consumed by the invalid, the infant and the child, it surely is the duty of the State to see that they are protected in their purchase of so valuable an article of food.

Question. If you do not believe in a milk standard, would you advocate a law requiring milk vendors to guarantee the amount of fat in the milk sold by them, leaving it to them to specify the amount?

Answer. I would not advocate or recommend such a law. The law would not be practicable, and I think its enforcement would be impossible. It would take the entire matter from the hands of State officials as prosecutors and place it in the hands of individuals who might feel that they were being dishonestly dealt with. The parties receiving small quantities of milk in a majority of cases would be unable to determine without considerable expense the quality of the milk sold, so as to know whether it was up to the guarantee made by the vendor; in the case of a creamery or cheese factory, the fact of a standard does not interfere with the factory buying milk and paying for it according to the amount of butter fat or other solids it may contain, and as all such factories can with but little trouble know the quality of milk delivered to them, and therefore are not obliged to receive milk and pay for it by either the hundred or the gallon, thereby encouraging the delivery of poor milk. I am not an advocate of the State stepping in and trying to protect such factories. In other words, they have the matter in their own hands, and honesty and self-interest should cause them to buy and pay for milk strictly on its merits by use of the Babcock tester.

2

W. K. BOARDMAN,

State Dairy Commissioner.

Maine.

Q. 1. Do you believe in a State having a milk standard?

Answer. Yes, most decidedly; and that standard should be as high as is consistent with the average quality of the milk produced in that State.

Q. 2. Your reasons for same?

Answer. First, for the purpose of protecting honest producers. Second, for the purpose of detecting fraud and punishing dishonest handlers of milk. Third, for the purpose of protecting consumers and enabling them to secure milk of prime quality.

Q. 3. If you do not believe in a milk standard, would you advocate a law requiring milk vendors to guarantee the amount of fat in the milk sold by them, leaving it to them to specify the amount?

Answer. I am not in favor of a law requiring milk vendors to guarantee the amount of fat in the milk sold by them.

Q. 4. If you do not believe that such a law would be as productive of as good results as a milk standard, please give your

reasons.

Answer. I am not in favor of such a law, as I believe it would open the door for unlimited fraud, unless the milk is very closely inspected at all seasons of the year.

Q. 6. State what, if any, benefit has been derived in your State from the adoption of your present milk standard.

Answer. The benefits derived by our State from our milk law has been: First, a general improvement in the quality of milk placed upon our markets; second, a driving out of irresponsible and dishonest producers and handlers of milk; third, it has given much encouragement to the honest milk producers.

B. WALKER MCKEEN, Secretary Maine Board of Agriculture.

Massachusetts.

BOSTON, MASS., December 4, 1896.

Hon. CHAS. A. WIETING, Commissioner of Agriculture, Albany, N. Y.:

Dear Sir.-Replying to your favor of the 2d, I enclose herewith my answers to your questions as well as I can answer them in the way in which they are stated, and I also enclose a portion of a paper which I read before our State Board of Agriculturelast year, in which I discussed the question of a statutory standard somewhat extensively, giving in detail some of my arguments for such a standard, and meeting some of the objections that we find in this State. I look upon the statute standard as something that is far from perfect, the ideal being selling the milk according to quality, but pending the arrival of the proper time for such a radical change in the law as that, I think an arbitrary statute standard is desirable. We find so many men that are engaged in the retail milk business who are disposed to water milk or otherwise adulterate it, and who appear to be of a disposition to do everything that seems to them to be reasonably safe to evade the law, that I have some grave doubts in my mind as to the practical details of enforcing a law requir ing the selling of milk according to quality. The theory seems right, but some of the details would have to be worked out with much care.

Q. 1. Do you believe in having a milk standard?

Answer. Yes.

Q. 2. Your reasons for same?

Answer. (See page 20.)

Q. 3. If you do not believe in a milk standard, would you advocate a law requiring milk vendors to guarantee the amount of fat in the milk sold by them, leaving it to them to specify the amount?

Answer. The highest ideal is selling according to guaranteed quality.

Q. 4. (Not answered.)

Q. 5. If you do believe that such a law would be as good if not better than a milk standard, please give your reasons for that belief.

Answer. The times are not yet ripe for the quality standard, but we should face that way.

Q. 6. State what if any benefit has been derived in your State from the adoption of your milk standard?

Answer. The consumer feels more confidence in what he buys, and good farmers are saved from competing with poor farmers. Yours respectfully,

GEO. M. WHITAKER.

Answer to second question by Mr. Whitaker, being part of a paper, entitled "Milk Supply of Massachusetts Cities," read by him before the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, at Dalton, Mass., on December 4, 1895.

SECOND PROBLEM-THE STANDARD.

Another problem growing out of the milk question relates to the standard. Should there be any statute standard,- that is, should the State by law prohibit the sale of pure milk when its quality is below an arbitrary standard? Some good and intelligent people say "No." A person interested in maintaining the negative could quote the English practice, which is in effect to have no standard but the poorest milk which it can be proved has been drawn from the udder of a cow, and not artificially adulterated. In this country no less an authority than the Hon. Edward Atkinson is on the same side.

Need of a Standard.

Every one will agree that the Legislature ought not to meddle with an article whose quality can be readily and conveniently determined. But, in case of an article of which it is impossible or inconvenient for the public to judge, the almost universal opinion is that a legal standard should be fixed. There is a gas standard and an oil standard; there are standards for drugs and for liquors; a standard age for veal is established. The impossibility of ordinary people promptly judging of the value of jewelry has led to the prohibition of peddling it. Milk is par ticularly an article of which the consumer cannot readily judge. It left at his house often before he is up in the morning, and it must go into immediate use. He has no appliance or opportunity for examining the quality, and usually can not take the time or trouble to look up the proper officers and present a sample to them. In other cases where there is such difficulty in determining quality, and where there is a possible wide variation in it, the law steps in and establishes an arbitrary standard.

Milk of unquestioned purity was found at the Ohio State fair with 8.41 per cent. of solids, and it sometimes has as high as 20 per cent.