ng the farms and in reporting on
their condition. If a farm is found where the cows are diseased, or if
the buildings in which the cows are stabled or in which the milk is
cooled and strained are not clean or are lacking in proper ventilation
or otherwise unhygienic, or if the water-supply is bad, the farmer is
notified that conditions are such that the city of New York will refuse
to receive his milk. He is not forced to clean up, and no orders are
given him, but the attitude of the city authorities is made plain, and
then it is left to him to decide whether it may not be wise for him to
accept the suggestions made by the inspectors. Dr. Darlington, late
Health Commissioner of the city of New York, reported in 1907, after two
years of inspection, that out of 35,000 dairies inspected, only 47 were
shut out on account of unclean conditions, although many more were
warned with the result that remedial measures were at once taken. The
same sort of procedure may be adopted by any city, and is, in fact,
practiced by a number.

Another method of securing a better grade of milk which results in
forcing farmers to clean up the barn and barnyard, at the same time
allowing the local official to remain within the strict letter of the
law, which gives him no direct authority over conditions on farms
outside a city, is to limit the number of bacteria found in samples of
milk supplied by the dealer. A common rule is that no milk shall be
distributed which contains more than 50,000 bacteria per c.c., and when
milk contains a number in excess of this, the milkman is warned, and if,
at the next sampling, the number is still higher, the milkman is
notified that his milk will no longer be received. Experience has shown
that a reasonable regard for cleanliness in the stable and dairy room,
with a prompt cooling of the milk, will limit the bacterial growth to
this standard, and the requirement, meaning, as it does, only a decent
regard for such cleanliness as a self-respecting dairyman would
recognize as essential, works no hardship on any one. New York City
prints its dairy rules on linen and has them tacked up in every cow barn
concerned in the city milk supply, and while they have merely the force
of suggestions only, practically they have the force of law in that a
disobedience to these rules is likely to involve the refusal of the milk
from that particular dairy.

LAWS GOVERNING QUARANTINE

It is much to be regretted that, in thes