the largest creamery companies assuring us of an organization of the dairymen of the state soon. No organization of the kind exists at present.

We expect to give the buttermaker "a square deal" by putting oleomargarine out of open competition with butter on the market. When lawmakers and courts fail we find that public opinion properly moulded by means of the newspapers is an ever present help.

We believe that "Milk is the key-stone of the arch of the pure food crusade." The only method we have of fixing standards for milk or cream or controlling the city supplies of these has been to urge the passing of suitable city ordinances. We have gotten in touch with the officials of about one hundred cities of our state by letter, very few having adequate ordinances. We have been requested to meet with the councils of several cities and have drafted ordinances for something like twenty cities at their request.

I must take exception to newspaper statements recently made, and credited to the Department of Agriculture (I believe by mistake, however,) to the effect that the milk supply of the cities of Colorado was the poorest in the United States. On the contrary the interest which has been mani

B. G. D. BISHOPP DAIRY COMMISSIONER OF COLORADO.

fested recently both by city officials and dairy men together with our natural condition bids fair to make the milk supply in the cities of Colorado the best in the United States.

Over twelve hundred head of dairy stock have been tested for tuberculosis within the past three months in our state. Within the past two weeks under the direction of the Colorado Dairy Commission the tuberculin test has been applied to three hundred eighty-two head of dairy cows.

These tests and their results bring out forcibly two very important facts regarding the Centennial State. The first is the remarkable healthfulness of Colorado climate for the cow as well as for her master. The second is the progressiveness of her farmers and dairymen.

The tests were made by Messrs. Tripp, McCausland, Eldredge and Morrow, students and graduates of the Colorado Agricultural College under the supervision of the State Dairy Commission.

Of the three hundred eighty-two head tested but six reacted to the test making about one and one-half per cent diseased. These three hundred eighty-two head constitute fifteen herds representing three sctions of the state about one hundred miles apart.

Of two hundred twenty-four head kept upon the divide between Denver and Colorado Springs and furnishing milk to the Carlson & Frink Co., of Denver, but one animal reacted to test and that to so slight an extent that she could be regarded only as suspicious. We have no record of a Colorado herd running higher than fifteen per cent and nearly all tests ever made in the state have shown less than five per cent diseased.

These latest results we regard as remarkable. The only assignable reason for so little of the disease being brought to this state in the numerous recent shipments of dairy stock from the east is that these shipments were bought subject to the tuberculin test and tested before coming to Colorado.

There is no law in Colorado requiring the testing of cattle kept for dairy purposes, and while the dairy commission has been striving for the past three months to secure ordinances in all cities enabling control of city milk and cream supply but few of our cities have strong ordinances on this subject.

The progressive spirit of the Colorado dairymen is attested to by his willingness to accept scientific methods without legal enactment. All tests made under the direction of the commission have been with the agreement on the part of the dairymen that any cattle found by the test to be diseased should be branded on the forehead with the letter T, so as to prevent diseased animals being sold or exchanged without apparent evidence to the prospective purchaser of the diseased condition especially during the period of immunity to test usually conceded to be ninety days following a test.

The owners of diseased animals have been willing in all cases to isolate the diseased stock from their herds and discontinue the sale of their milk at the suggestion of the commissioner.

I might mention here that the tuberculin test has been the source of another gross fraud. In this case it has been practiced by the veterinarian who in our state charges as a rule $2.00 per head in large herds and $3.00 per head where but a few are tested. This fraud has led me to place the branding clause just mentioned in city ordinances which we have drafted and in all agreements with dairymen who have had their herds tested under my supervision.

Let me sight a specific instance. A veterinarian, with one of the largest practices in Denver, tested a herd of fortytwo cows, making the usual charge, and declared twenty-one of them diseased. He bought the twenty-one good dairy cows said to have reacted to the test, for $20 per head, drove them about forty miles away and contracted for their keep with a farmer for one-half the proceeds from milk sold from them and one-half their increase.

The only comforting feature of the situation is that no doubt but one or two of the twenty-one head are tuberculous instead of the whole number condemned.

This case was known to the state veterinarian and the state board of live-stock inspection but was overlooked entirely by them.

We have gathered the data I have given, with some difficulty. We expect to give this veterinarian some free advertising and reduce the objections on the part of the veterinarians generally to the charge of $50 per head by representatives of our office who are college men but not graduate veterinarians. It is our aim to make dairying a more popular and a more profitable industry than it ever has been, in Colorado.

THE PRESERVATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF SODA FOUNTAIN SYRUPS WITH AND WITHOUT PRESERVATION.

A. G. RICHARDSON, ROCHESTER, N. Y.

The evolution of the soda fountain and the development of its widespread popularity has taken place within the memory of most of us here to-day. We can all recall the little boxlike soda fountains with their crude apparatus which were so common a few years ago and which have not yet passed entirely out of existence. They are a wonderful contrast to the beautiful and elaborate fittings put out by the soda fountain manufacturers of to-day, many of which are fit for a king's palace and ranging in price from $250 to $25,000 each. The first soda fountains primitive in their construction embodied many unsanitary defects, including the use of corrosive metal and faults of construction and sign which made it practically impossible to keep them sweet and clean, and in addition the almost universal use of extrcts and artificial flavors in the preparation of soda fountin syrups, combined with the lack of knowledge and experiece

on the part of the dispensers regarding the management of the soda fountains, made it inevitable that the quality of the products served at the soda fountain in earlier days, could not be of the highest excellence. The conditions as already intimated have changed for the better. No pains or expense is spared to make the modern soda fountain absolutely sanitary. The syrups are kept in closed containers, porcelain, glass, silver plate, and pure block tin. The syrups do not come in contact with anything which will make them impure, there are no crevices where impurities can be concealed, and in fact the whole construction of the modern soda fountain is such, that it can be frequently, quickly, and thoroughly cleansed and sterilized-nothing that ingenuity can suggest has been omitted to accomplish this result.

But by far the most important factor in the evolution and improvement of the products dispensed at the soda fountain, has been the origination, development and adoption by the trade of pure true fruit flavors, as this has improved the character of soda water and kindred forms of refreshment in themselves, while the improvements in soda fountain construction have prevented soda fountain flavors from being contaminated before they were served to the customer.

The J. Hungerford Smith Co. were the pioneers or leaders, so to speak, in the manufacture of concentrated fruit syrups and crushed fruits for soda fountain use, which is generally conceded to have done more than anything else to elevate the quality of soda water served to the public, therefore, we feel that we can speak with some authority on this subject, especially as our president, who has attained some recognition as an accomplished chemist, and a man of the highest integrity, has devoted his life to the study and research concerning such products. I trust you will credit me with a proper feeling of modesty in making these statements, which seem necessary in explanation of my further remarks. And now for a moment I will ask your indulgence in a brief personal reference entirely apart from my connection with the J. Hungerford Smith Co.

It is now about 25 years since I began my apprenticeship in the drug business and obtained my first experience in the soda water business. To attain better results and in preference to using extracts for flavoring my fountain syrups, I used to make them from fruit juices, taking one quart of fruit juice and adding 334 pounds of sugar; this was brought to boiling heat, making about 56 ounces of concentrated, heavy syrup. I diluted this heavy concentrated syrup with equal parts of heavy sugar syrup when it was ready for the fountain. This process made a concentrated syrup which was practically a saturated solution, vet notwithstanding that it had been sterilized by boiling, which incidentally destroyed about 50 per cent of the fresh fruit flavor, and notwithstanding the natural preserving qualities of a heavy syrup, this product would frequently ferment and spoil. During the fifteen years that followed, while I was engaged in the drug business, I continued to make my soda fountain syrups by the process I have described being unable to find a better method. Then, about ten years ago I secured samples of the J. Hungerford Smith Co.'s line of cold process fruit syrups and found by diluting them with three parts of simple syrup that I secured twice as much of the finished product and quality so much superior to that made from the fruit juice by heating, that I adopted them for my fountain and my business doubled. I may remark here that while I have managed many soda fountains, I have never failed to increase the business by improving the quality of the soda water, and as a rule this fact is appreciated by the trade and the majority of dispensers to-day are trying to see how good they can make the soda water they serve, rather than how cheap, because it is to their interest to do so. During my years of experience as a traveling salesman, calling on the soda fountain trade, I have seen the business of thousands of dispensers increase enormously by adopting cold process concentrated syrups. It is true that the popularity of a certain product may be no test of its purity, but soda water must be better in flavor and appearance at least if it is unusually popular, and there is at least ground for the assumption that it is really purer and better in quality.

I have stated that sterilization destroys at least 50 per cent of the fresh fruit flavor; the use of a minimum quantity of some harmless preservative like benzoate of soda enables the manufacturer to put the fruits or fruit syrups up by cold process, preserving in the greatest degree the natural and fresh flavor of the fruit. Now the use of such a preservative in the infinitely small quantity requisite for the purpose does not pickle the product as the uninformed may suppose, but merely prevents the inceptive stages of fermentation, the

amount is so small that even the strongly pronounced flavor of benzoate of soda cannot be detected in the concentrated product, indeed this is one of the features of benozate of soda, that if a sufficient quantity were used to have injurious effect upon the human system, it would ruin the flavor of the food product in which it was used rendering it inedible. As you are doubtless aware, a concentrated syrup for the soda fountain is one which is so strong in flavor that it must be diluted with three to five times its bulk of plain syrup before it is put into the fountain and this product is again diluted with about five times its bulk of plain or carbonated water before it is served to the consumer, so that the finished beverage would only contain benzoate of soda equal to about one part in four thousand-very insignificant as you no doubt agree. It is because they are subject to such extreme dilution that soda fountain requisites require a higher percentage of preservation in the original package as compared with canned goods, about one fourth of one per cent in the former and about one-tenth of one per cent in the latter and manufacturers are apprehensive as to what would be the result if firms handling such perishable products in immense quantities were to attempt this without preservatives of any kind.

Fruit products are especially liable to decay, fermentation, etc., and it seems indisputable that the danger to public health would be many times increased and multiplied by such a course, for even sterilization is not a reliable means of preesrvation, even if it did not destroy the flavor, and fruit products so prepared will rapidly spoil after they are opened. It is of course well known to you that the handling of fruit products during shipment in varying temperatures and conditions also increases the liability of fermentation. Again, if it were practical to sterilize such goods they must be put up in much smaller packages greatly increasing the cost and to such an extent as to be prohibitive.

I have been intimately connected with the soda fountain business for 25 years. I have made and handled soda fountain syrups of every description and have seen them made, but I have never yet seen a satisfactory fruit syrup made by cooking or without a preservative. Our president, Mr. J. Hungerford Smith was the originator of concentrated true fruit syrups for the soda fountain and has devoted his life to the study of fruit products. I doubt if any man in America has had a better opportunity or is better equipped by training, education and experience in this particular line. There has been a constant and sincere effort on the part of my firm to produce goods that invariably measured up to the highest standard. In this endeavor we believe we have been successful and we are ready to submit our goods to any kind of test or comparison alongside of any similar products put up in any other way. We will do this with minds open to conviction and if any one can show us any method whereby the purity or quality of our products may be improved, we are ready to adopt it. Our convictiors are based on personal knowledge and experience and we only ask as manufacturers, that you gentlemen as public officials will not advocate or impose conditions which will restrict or ruin any legitimate business unless your own personal knowledge and experience convinces you that the requirements exacted are reasonable, right, and practicable, and will result in improvement over present conditions and not otherwise.

It is a strange condition that exists when the Government spends thousands of dollars in research and experiment in the interest of agriculture and then spends many thousands of dollars more in the free distribution of such information for the benefit of the farmer, but at the same time, imposes restrictions upon the manufacturer who furnishes such a large market to the agriculturist standing between him and the consumer, serving both, and to the manufacturer who occupies such an important position in our commercial life as a nation, who has more unstable and fluctuating conditions to contend with than any other line of business: that, to him the Government should say, the methods you have evolved through long years of toil and experience, alone unaided, unadvised, notwithstanding they have stood the test of public approval, notwithstanding they have thus far produced the best results, notwithstanding that it may mean financial loss or ruin, notwithstanding that we can give you no advice, information or any substitute for your present methods, these must all be discontinued.

Gentlemen, the American manufacturer will adopt any suggestion that will improve his products, but in the name of justice, tell him how he can improve if he must be forced to change. When a manufacturer comes to you with an honest desire to comply with the law and eager and anxious for some information as to how he can do so and still con