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264 YEARBOOK OF AGRICULTURE, 1927 actually rejected. A considerable amount of off-flavored milk and cream is accepted which can not be made into high-grade dairy- products. The resulting manufactured products must be sold at relatively low prices, and the returns to dairy farmers are correspond- ingly low. No industry, even a prosperous one, can afford to shoulder such a load. If such losses occurred in any other of the giant trade channels of this country, instant steps would be taken to find and correct the trouble. Efficiency experts, factory-management studies, research laboratories, engineers—all would be used to solve the problem. Progress in Dairy Sanitation Is this '^old man of the sea'^ saddled forever upon the dairy indus- try? By no means. His grip is loosening rapidly and he may be shaken off by concerted effort. Two things point to his ultimate elimination. One is the progress already made in dairy sanitation; the other is the fact that the solution of the problem is already pretty well worked out. Great strides have been made in overcom- ing this waste. It was not so many years ago that sour milk on the breakfast table was a fairly common occurrence. Now one can travel almost anywhere and be assured of purchasing sweet, palat- able milk. All this has come about in spite of the fact that the milk supply of this country is much more complex than it used to be. Milk is now transported hundreds of miles to the cit}'^, whereas it used to come from closely adjacent territory. Cleanliness and refrigeration are the only weapons needed to win the struggle. The fundamentals undertying clean milk production have been found to be relatively few and simple. Clean, healthy, carefully fed cows, small-top milking pails, sterilized dairy utensils, and prompt cooling and cold storage will do much toward banishing sour and badly flavored milk and other dairy products. Many agencies are at work to simplify and stimulate good dairy practices. Government and State organizations, milk dealers, dairy associations, and other agencies are cooperating in the work. Not the least encouraging sign is the attitude taken by some organiza- tions of dairy farmers. These associations are employing men to visit members^ farms to aid in correcting defects. Through such organizations, working from the inside, will come much of the future progress of the industry. ERNEST KELLY. DAIRY Market Finds The custom of permitting cream to Sweet-Cream Butter sour before churning developed cen- Gains Public Favor turies ago, no doubt as a matter of necessity rather than of choice. The separation of cream by gravity, the accumulation of a sufficient amount of cream to make a churning, and the difficulty of maintain- ing low temperatures naturally resulted in the cream becoming sour before it was churned. When the factory system of butter making was introduced in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the souring or ripening of cream previous to churning was a custom so well established that the creamery butter maker adopted it as a matter of course. Even after WHAT'S NEW IN AGRICULTURE 265 the factory separator came into general use and sweet milk was delivered to the creamery, this custom was not changed. Indeed the ripening of the cream was such an important step in butter mak- ing that the use of a starter, consisting of a culture of lactic-acid- producing bacteria, became a general practice in order that the development of a desirable acid flavor might be assured. When State agricultural experiment stations were established many of them studied various problems in connection with butter making. In 1889 the West Virginia experiment station reported that the col- lege creamery had established a good demand for sweet-cream butter. The following year the Iowa station reported that sweet-cream butter stored in a cellar kept better than sour-cream butter. In 1892 LeClair of the St. Hyacinthe Dairy School, Quebec, Canada, recommended Pasteurizing sweet cream, cooling it, holding it for three hours, adding 30 per cent starter, then churning it at once. After adopting this practice he obtained fine-quality butter that was very uniform from day to day. He apparently did not, however, determine its keeping quality. Keeping Quality of the Product A study begun in 1905 by the United States Department of Agri- culture of the influence of acidity of cream on the keeping quality of butter established the fact that butter made from unripened, Pas- teurized sweet cream would maintain its fine quality to a high degree during at least eight months' storage at 0° F. Because of this work the United States Navy in 1909 adopted the practice of purchasing each year a quantity of sweet-cream butter to be placed in cold storage and used throughout the ensuing year. This practice is continued. Mortensen, in Iowa Bulletin 207 published in 1922, concludes from his work that ripened-cream butter receives a higher commercial score when fresh but that sweet-cream butter keeps better in storage. Sweet-cream butter was much criticized by butter manufacturers and dealers because it lacked the high flavor and aroma of ripened- cream butter. For this reason comparatively little sweet-cream butter was made except on Navy contracts until after 1918. In that year the Navy Department purchased over 9,000,000 pounds of sweet- cream butter from more than 100 creameries. A considerable portion of this butter was packed in 5-pound tin cans by a New York butter dealer. He was so favorably impressed by its remarkable uniformity, even though it came from many widely scattered plants, and by its unequalled keeping quality that he arranged to sell this type of butter under his own established brand, which already had a wide reputation for high quality. This attracted the attention of other butter dealers, who soon found it advantageous to handle this type of butter. These dealers found that consumers were favorably impressed with sweet-cream butter because of its mild, creamy flavor, its uniformity in quality, and its property of maintaining its fine flavor in spite of the relatively high temperature to which it is exposed in the retail store and in the home. Sweet-Cream Butter Output Each year an increasing quantity of sweet-cream butter is manu- factured. A number of creameries situated in what has always been 266 YEARBOOK OF AGRICULTURE, 1927 considered sour-cream territory are grading cream and making some sweet-cream butter; for instance, in one Southwestern State eight creameries, according to a recent report from that State, are making this type of butter. A prominent butter dealer in New York City recently stated that most of the dealers in that city now handle some sweet-cream butter and that during the cold-storage season nearly all buyers are eager to obtain butter of this type. An association of creameries reports that in 1926 it sold over 50,000,000 pounds of sweet-cream butter in 82 cities in the United States. This association also reports that it returned to its member creameries one-half cent a pound more for sweet-cream butter scoring 93 per cent than for ripened-cream butter of the same score. Further evidence of the growing appreciation of this butter is indi- cated by the fact that each day for several months the following statement has appeared in a daily trade report issued in New York City: Some very fancy lots of guaranteed sweet-cream creamery sell mainly on con- tract, above our top quotations. It appears then that sweet-cream butter is receiving its just recog- nition on the market and that it now occupies a high place in public favor. WILLIAM WHITE. DAIRY Success With Careful and well-informed dairymen the Milking Machine have demonstrated that certified milk, Requires Cleanliness which is milk containing not more than 10,000 bacteria per cubic centi- meter at the time of delivery to the consumer, can be produced with milking machines. Market milk of a good grade has also been pro- duced w^ith milking machines operated under ordinary farm condi- tions. There is no short cut to cleanliness, however, and clean milk can not be produced with neglected machines. Milking machines which are not washed and sterilized properly may be the direct cause of large numbers of bacteria in milk. With the use of mechanical milkers becoming more common in the production of market milk, cleanliness of these machines becomes a problem of great importance. One of the important factors in producing clean milk with a milk- ing machine is to wash the machine immediately after each milking. The sooner a machine is w^ashed after milking the easier it is to keep clean. Furthermore, if it remains unwashed for any length of time, it will be the direct cause of a great number of bacteria in the milk. Although there may be times when the machine can not be washed immediately after milking, it can at least be rinsed by drawing clean water through it with the vacuum and then washed more thoroughly later. Washing alone is not sufficient treatment for a milking machine if milk of a low bacterial count is to be produced. It is also necessary to sterilize the machine after washing. This may be done with heat or with chemicals. More uniformly low bacterial counts will be obtaiaed, however, by the use of heat. .

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