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280
1909]
Fastening Churns.—The Medical Officer of Health has for many
years insisted that farmers were very unwise in not fastening their
churns when sending their milk to the purveyors in the large towns. This
view is held by all persons deeply interested in the milk trade, and recently
he notes that Mr. J. G. Perrett, in addressing a meeting of the Gillingham
Branch of the Somerset, Wiltshire and Dorset Farmers' Association, said
"He would like to see the risk of farmers end on delivery at the station,
"and then the Company take the ordinary carrier's risk. Failing that, the
"farmers' liability should stop at the breaking of the seals of the churns.
"All churns should be sealed, for it was not the quantity of the milk that
"was extracted, but what was placed in the churns to make up. If farmers
"would persist in sending their churns unsealed, they do so at their own
"risk." Although arrangements have been made for many years by the
Railway Companies to carry milk in sealed or locked churns, it is not
uncommon to find both the farmers and the retail vendors of milk asserting
in Courts of Justice that these Companies will not carry milk in them.
Such ignorance of the railway regulations in matters that vitally concern
their businesses is woeful. One cannot help thinking that the call the
King made to the nation at large is particularly applicable to its farmers:
" Wake up " It is indeed time they did so.
The Standardization of Milk. By this expression is meant the
reduction of milk of good quality to the minimum standard laid down for
pure milk by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries by the addition of
separated milk. The operation is a simple one, for all that is required to be
known is the amount of fat in the whole milk, so that any man of moderate
knowledge and skill can easily determine the quantity of separated milk which
should be added.
There is a very simple method, well known to the trade in the United
States, of making a calculation, but it is not proposed to give it here lest by
chance it should fall into the hands of any milk purveyors in England who are
not already aware of it, and so tempt them, owing to the ease with which it
may be applied, to sophisticate their milk. There is no form of adulteration so
difficult of determination, although persons accustomed to study the analyses of
milks can make a shrewd guess as to those which have been standardized.
Indeed, it was the examination of the analytical figures of many milks purchased
from the North Eastern Dairy Company that led the Medical Officer
of Health to think that they were standardizing their milks, and caused him to
make private inquiries as to their purchase of separated milk. And it was on