THE PRESENT STATUS OF THE SCORE CARD OF MILK QUALITY.

TWO years ago at the Colorado Springs meeting there was presented the plan of a Committee of the Official Dairy Instructors Association for the preparation of a score card of milk quality which should furnish us an acceptable basis for grading city milk supplies. The Official Dairy Instructors Association is perhaps best known to you, as the author of the dairy score card printed by the Federal Bureaq of Animal Industry and used by the state of New York and many municipalities. The limitations of this dairy score card as a measure of the quality of a city milk supply have long been recognized and have recently been pointed out in. detail by Mr. Brew in Bulletin 398 of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station. Recognizing that the present dairy score card did not offer a satisfactory basis for grading the products of a dairy, three years ago, the Instructors Association directed its committee to prepare a new score card for that purpose. In sharp contrast with preceding efforts this committee decided to base its conclusions upon careful measurements of the factors involved. The magnitude and difficulty of this undertaking may perhaps be appreciated from the fact that approximately $50,000 has already been expended upon these researches, and the undertaking is not yet completed. Naturally such studies concern themselves with the sources of bacterial contamination and with the factors controlling the growth of the bacteria in the milk. The contaminating influences of the barn have now been fairly surveyed. The results are given mainly in the publications of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station. They may be summarized by stating that while the cow is important, the condition of the barn and its surroundings exert practically no influence. The great influence of the germ life in the utensils in contaminating the milk was presented yesterday by Doctor Prucha, and the data will appear later in the publications from the Agricultural Experiment Station of Illinois. The contamination of the milk up to the time it reaches the city is mainly due to the cow and to the utensils. In practically all cases where more than twelve hours elapse between milking and sampling growth accounts for the larger part of the germs found. Accordingly, temperature control is the largest factor in controlling the germ life in city milk. Extensive studies are now under way to determine the age and temperature conditions of the milk supplies of the cities of the United States. After three years of committee work which were.preceded by some years of individual work there is naturally some pressure for tangible results in the form of a score card. During the present summer a tentative card for scoring the milk as it leaves the barn has been formulated and is now being tried in field studies. It is still too early to venture an estimate as to the date at which the finished score card will be in condition for general use. This statement, of the present status of the work would be incomplete if it did not include reference to the co8perative assistance of the International Milk Dealers Association, the Dairy Inspectors Association and the officials of a number of cities.