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54 MILK STANDARDS INQUIRY.
percentage of fat removed, or the amount of water added, the
analyst is to have regard to the above limits of 3·25 per cent.
fat, and of 8·5 per cent. non-fatty solids; and, when the nonfatty
solids fall below 8·5 per cent., the analyst shall also take
into account the extent to which the milk-fat exceeds 3·25
per cent.*
The above recommendations,if adopted, will be of great importance
to farmers and to the consumers of milk. But it must be
borne in mind that any forcing up of the natural standard will throw
the poorer, but quite genuine and useful, milk out of the market
—at the immediate loss of the farmer, and ultimately at the cost of
a general rise in price to the consumer. This is eminently
undesirable. In my judgment the requirement of 12 per cent.
of total milk-solids is too high for a bottom limit. The "bottom
limit" should be that already adopted by the Society of Public
Analysts which is 3 per cent. fat, and 8·5 per cent. of non-fatty
solids—making total milk-solids 11·5 per cent. Some genuine
milks at certain times of the day, and at certain seasons of the
year, undoubtedly contain less than 12 per cent. total milk solids.
Again, the "standard," i.e., the percentage of milk solids contained
in a good average milk, is quite a different thing from that
"bottom limit," below which it may safely be assumed that the
milk has been watered or skimmed. The "standard" is that with
which a milk below the "bottom-limit" should be compared in
order to calculate the percentage of watering or fat-abstraction
to which the condemned milk has been subjected. In
a special Report by me upon milk, milk standards, and
bottom-limits—which was appended to my annual Report for
the year 1897, these topics are exhaustively discussed. In that
report I recommended adjudication by the "total milk-solids,"
as simpler to understand and fairer alike to the producer and
consumer of milk. I have myself used the determination of total
milk-solids in milk for many years in adjudicating upon milks, and
I am glad to see that it has now been recommended by the
Departmental Committee.
The principle of raising a "presumption" against the vendor
of milk containing less than a certain percentage of total milksolids,
and then inflicting upon such vendor the task of defending
* Here it is difficult to know what is meant in instructing the Analyst
"to have regard to the above limits," and also "to take into account the
extent to which the milk-fat exceeds 3·25%." In my special Report on
Milk (year 1897), it was recommended that the whole of the milk-solids
should be aggregated and regarded conjunctively—instead of being separated
and regarded disjunctively. There is no material difference between
the food-value of the milk-fat and of the "milk-solids-not-fat."