ne other factor is involved which, while scoffed at by some of the
old-time farmers, has nevertheless proved its value, and that is the use
of the _narrow-topped milk-pail_. It is startling when tested by
bacterial growths under the two conditions to see how many more bacteria
will be found in the wide open pail than in the narrow-topped one, and
while, of course, some milkers may not be able to use a pail the top of
which is only six inches in diameter, it is quite worth while for
milkers who do not know how to use a narrow-topped pail to learn.

The size of the opening is not the whole consideration in the matter of
the milk-pail. The way it is washed is even more important. If it is
merely rinsed out in cold water and then washed in warm water, it is far
from clean, and milk poured into such a pail and then poured out will by
that process have gathered to itself thousands of bacteria. For example,
some experiments have shown that milk in well-washed pails had, on the
average, 28,600 bacteria per c.c., while that collected in pails of the
same sort under identical conditions, except that the pails had been
steamed, contained only 1300 bacteria per c.c.

Perhaps the most important factor in the care of these utensils is the
necessity of killing the bacteria left in them by the milk itself.
Ordinary washing will not do this. Either the washing must be done with
some sterilizing agent, like strong salsoda, which must then, of course,
be thoroughly rinsed out, or else the inside of the pail must be filled
with absolutely boiling water or with steam. The advantage of the latter
is that no contamination is possible by the water itself, whereas in
washing out the disinfectant the water, unless pure, contaminates the
surface again. To show the effects of clean pails, an experiment was
made in which milk was drawn from a cow and found to have 6000 bacteria
per c.c. It was then poured rapidly from one to another of six other
apparently clean pails. At the end of the sixth pouring, the milk was
found to be so changed that the number of bacteria had increased to
98,000 per c.c.

The strainer for a milk-pail is preferably made of cheesecloth, since
this can always be easily boiled between milkings, and so sterilized. A
wire strainer through which the milk has to pass, and where the milk is
often stirred by the finger of the milker to make it pass through more
rapidly, is in no sense as satisfactory as cheesecloth.

The strainin