It always costs to be clean, and clean milk costs more to produce and deliver. Several right-minded persons have tested the public's willingness and have found it wanting. This must be remedied.

If housewives would unite in demanding certified milk, and be willing to pay for it, the quality would rapidly improve. It is poor policy to balk at an increase in price which means health and even life, instead of illness and death, to thousands of children.

Too loud a note cannot be sounded in warning, but it must be based on truth, not on exaggeration. The twentieth century woman should not allow herself to be imposed upon by sensational literature, but should inform herself of local conditions.

Cooperation is here a necessity, and should be supported as a business venture.

CONDENSED MILK

The extremely unstable character of milk, and the consequent difficulty of transportation and preservation for any length of time, have led to the adoption of various processes for concentrating the valuable constituents, which are only about 14 per cent of the weight, into a smaller bulk and more stable condition. The usual process consists in simple concentration. The milk is evaporated in vacuum pans, and toward the end heated to 212° F., in order to destroy any germs of mold. It is put up in tin cans, sealed hermetically, and may then be kept any length of time. Sometimes a little sugar is added. In either case, the product is sold as condensed milk, which often contains about one-third as much water as the original liquid.

Evaporated milk is offered as a solution of the problem of supplying a safe milk for children and invalids during the summer months. It is pure milk evaporated, without the addition of sugar, in a vacuum pan at a temperature of about 130° F., or below 150° F., which is much lower than that at which condensed milk is usually prepared. At this low temperature the milk is far less changed from its normal condition, and is more digestible than is the case when it is heated to boiling.

CREAM

When milk is allowed to stand at rest for some hours, the fat globules rise to the top, forming a layer from one-tenth to one-fifth of the total thickness. This layer, rich in fat, is called cream, and contains from 20 to 40 per cent of fat.

A sign of increasing prosperity and of more luxurious living is the extensive use of cream purchased as cream. Apartment dwellers have no facilities for "setting" the several quarts of milk needed to supply the breakfast table with this esteemed adjunct to the coffee, fruit, and cereal, even if the milk could be delivered to them in a sweet condition.

The separator at the dairy, a truly modern machine, does in a few minutes the work of hours in dividing most of the fat from the fluid emulsion without churning it to butter. Reduced to one-fifth the bulk, it is much more easily transported and delivered to customers. It is sold as heavy or thin cream.

Probably this use of cream has been the means of

abolishing the now berated American breakfast of steak or eggs and bacon with hot breads.

The good prices obtained for cream have doubtless led to some abuses, such as the addition of thickening substances and preservatives. Sucrate of lime, or viscogen, is not in itself harmful, nor does it injure the cream. If, however, a person is avoiding the use of lime salts in water and other foods, this unknown amount of the forbidden substance may prove hurtful. Gelatin is not an objectionable article of diet when properly prepared, but as a thickener of cream it is out of place.

Cream naturally thickens on standing, owing to the chemical changes in even clean cream.

Sterilized cream has not quite the flavor of fresh cream, but it is safer than dirty cream unsterilized. Fortunately, cream is very easily changed in taste and odor by foreign substances, and therefore is not so deceptive as other adulterated products.

The use of cream instead of milk for infants renders it imperative that the public generally should be awake to the conditions of the cream market and should sustain the city and state authorities in their endeavors to protect the helpless children.

The matter is in the hands of the buyer. If he will use only certified milk and cream, then the laws can be enforced.

BUTTER

Butter is a very important article of diet, especially in English-speaking countries. It is of all animal fats the favorite, not only on account of its pleasant taste,

but because it is the most easily digested. Butter with bread forms an almost perfect food.

Herodotus, in his account of the Scythians, makes an obscure mention of butter, and this is the earliest reference known. Dioscorides is the first to observe that when melted and poured over vegetables it serves the same purpose as oil, and that it can be used in pastry. It is not mentioned by Galen, or other writers of his time, as food, and indeed to this day it is little used in southern countries, so that it might almost be said to be a product of northern civilization in its present uses. There is undoubted evidence that butter was well known to the Anglo-Saxons and used for salves and medicines.

Butter is prepared by separating the fats from the water and curd of milk by agitation, which causes the lighter particles of fat to rise. These then are collected and worked into a homogeneous mass. This process

seems to be very successfully accomplished at present by the centrifugal machine.

The

Good butter consists of fats, water, and curd. water varies from 8 to 16 per cent. Over 16 per cent is injurious to the keeping of butter. There should not be over I per cent of curd left, because it tends to grow rancid and mold, thus tainting the butter.

The manufacture of butter has passed from the care of the farmer's wife to that of the company employee to its advantage in some respects, but with certain deteriorations.

The skilled dairy woman, with a pride in the flavor and keeping qualities of her product, furnished an arti

cle rarely found today, in spite of the artificial ripening of the cream by B41, or whatever bacterium is the favorite. On the other hand, creamery butter is of a more uniform quality and better flavor than the butter of ignorant and careless butter makers.

There is a great temptation to cheat the pigs to increase the yield of the valuable product, butter, by stuffing with the curd. The old-fashioned country butter, packed in tubs to keep eight months, contained only 10 to 12 per cent water and curd. The creamery butter of today, especially the light-colored, unsalted variety, frequently contains 20 per cent water and 5 to 10 per cent curd, lessening its fuel value, although increasing its nitrogenous value, which is not what we expect to pay for in butter. The author has found as high as 33 per cent of curd.

This excess of curd does not injure the flavor, but rather adds to it when fresh. Since, however, it is more readily attacked by decomposing organisms which give very disagreeable tastes and odors, such butter soon spoils and may become dangerous. It should

therefore be eaten while fresh.

The United States standard for fat is not less than 82.5 per cent.

Butter is very sensitive to unpleasant odors, and must be kept with great care, in closed vessels, since even a few hours' exposure to ordinary air injures the delicate flavor. It would be well if all girls could serve an apprenticeship in a good dairy for a few weeks, in order to learn cleanliness.

The 70 to 86 per cent of butter fats are for the