CLEAN HOME MILK
I know what milking is on the farm. Take it on a frosty October morning about sun-up, when you make the cow get up from her bed so that you can stand in the "warm spot" to warm your feet. It gets no better from that time on, even if you do milk in the cow stable. But the boys that do the milking do not realize how perfectly filthy the milk often is when it gets to the house.
Take a milk pail from the shelf, go down to the cow barn. There is the cow. Throw her down an armful of hay to chew on while you milk, brush off the stool, rub off the cow's bag with a wisp of hay if she is especially dirty, never mind your hands or the open pail, throw a stream of milk onto each palm and begin. Is there a little hay and dust in the pail? Never mind; it will strain out. When you get through, set the pail down while you drive the cows out to pasture. To be sure, they will raise a lot of cow-stable dust and the smell is pretty bad in there, but if you set it outside the pigs would get into it. It is nearly school time and you have other chores to do. Take it to the house and strain it. Mother always doubles the strainer cloth, but it takes an awful time for it to run through that way. There, you said the dirt would strain out, and look at it there in the cloth!
This is a cold-hearted picture of one of the chores the farm boy particularly hates. Compare each item with your own methods and improve on each. Home milk is not always clean milk.
Sanitary milk pail
The boy that milks ought to do a better job than this. He ought to bring clean milk into the house. How shall he do it? A clean place to milk, a clean cow, a clean boy, and a sanitary milk pail; these four things are within the reach of every farm that can afford a cow.
I have seen a good many patent milk pails, mostly in stores, seldom on farms. The sanitary milk pails keep the dirt out, they don't strain it out. Here is one described by the man who invented it for his own use. This pail is tin, holds ten quarts or so. On one side is a spout two and a half inches in diameter and three inches long. The spout has a tin cover like a baking powder can cover. To keep the dirt out of the top of the pail the man bought a tin pan, just the size to fit tight into the top of the pail. Just above the bottom of the pan on one side he had a tinner cut eight or ten small holes, like a collander. Scald the pail, double the strainer cloth and lay it across the top of the pail. Press the pan down on the cloth till it goes down into the pail tight, taking care that the edge of the cloth comes up all round. Do all this at the house. With this pail, a clean milker can milk a clean cow in a sweet smelling place, and get clean milk. This may look like a pound of prevention, but think of the tons of cure it will save.