The beginning of the milk industry is with the owner of the dairy cow, and the starting point to improve our milk supply is with the owner of the dairy farm. The demand for cleaner and more wholesome milk is universal. How to proceed to more completely safeguard the milk supply, and to encourage the employment of competent, experienced men as inspectors and to standardize and make uniform our work, are some of the objects for which this Association was organized, and for the accomplishment of which this Association will labor. Dairy and milk inspection is today largely a question of education, supplemented by necessary legislation. Various methods are employed in different places.
Some cities depend almost wholly on farm inspection to insure the purity of their milk supply.
Others, again, rely more largely on the bacteria test. Still others rely solely on fat tests to indicate what constitutes lawful and wholesome milk, and still others see little need for anything but the application of the tuberculin test to all herds. The discussion of these and other problems will follow as a part of the program of this Convention and I hope the members will render every assistance in their power, through the agency of this organization, to bring about desired changes and reforms and a unification of methods and procedure. I trust the result of our work will be received by our superiors throughout this and other countries in the spirit and for the purpose for which this Association was organized, namely, to elevate and to improve the work and to place it in the hands of men who are best qualified and fitted to do the work. Let us labor to secure a purer and more wholesome milk supply for our people in general and for the babies in particular, thereby safeguarding the public health and promoting the best interests of all classes.