THINGS TO DO

Perhaps your teacher will take you to visit the most sanitary dairy in your town to see how the milk is received and tested, bottled and distributed. Try to think of the reasons for each process.

Find out if your city inspects milk. Find out if it publishes any lists of good dairymen. Find out if your city has any standards for milk that the farmers and dairymen must come up to. Find out where the milk you use in your home comes from and how good it is.

Find out what the best milk in your town costs per quart. Make a list of the things that should be done to such milk from the time it leaves the cow till it reaches your home to keep it sanitary.

What is the value to the body's health of a quart of good milk compared with a pound of beef? Make up your mind then if a quart of good milk is expensive or cheap.

THINGS TO REMEMBER

Milk is the most important of all foods for babies and growing children. Without it they cannot grow as they should. Therefore, to keep it safe, milk and everything made from milk must be kept away from germs. Germs can grow in milk and make poisonous substances there when we are careless with it. Such spoiled milk makes people very sick and kills many babies every year.

To care for milk we must keep it covered, clean and cool.

Milk must come from a clean place. The cows must not be sick. They must be kept clean and milked in a clean, airy barn. The milkers must be healthy and must have scrubbed hands and must wear clean clothes. The buckets in a clean dairy are always steamed and kept covered till used. Careful farmers strain the milk into sterilized cans and cool it at once. They send these cans to the city, in refrigerator cars if possible, as soon as they

can. The good city dairy then takes care of the milk in a clean way until it is bottled and left at your door. Milk that is sold from a can instead of in sealed bottles, is not the best milk. Do you see why?

Often milk is preserved. It sometimes has all of its water taken out. Then it is a white powder. In this form it will keep a long time, because germs cannot live in dry substances. Sometimes milk is condensed, and sometimes evaporated. Both of these kinds of milk have much of the water taken out. When we open a can of such milk we must pour all of it into china or glass and keep it coolnot letting it stand in the tin. If we do, germs may grow in it, and injurious substances may be formed in the can. Remember that milk is your best friend. Treat it as such by giving it the best care you can.

TO THINK ABOUT

If you could choose only one food for a baby what would it be? Why is this food so necessary?

What are the three C's to remember about the care of milk?

Someone who has been to a model dairy in the country will tell exactly how the cows were cared for and how the milk is prepared for shipment.

Someone who has been to a big city creamery will tell about the care of milk in the city.

Tell a story about the milk you would like to drink for breakfast, from the cow to your cup.

How can people have milk to use where there are no cows and where fresh milk cannot be sent?

Does ice-cream need to be cared for the same as milk? Have you ever seen ice-cream that you think might not have been pure and clean? Where?

Do you think your city ought to help its people to get good milk? Why? How could it do so? What can all of us do to make sure our city has a good milk supply?

"WELL, " said Aunt Louise, looking up from the last spoonful of her ice-cream, "this has certainly been a most delightful housewarming."

The moment that Aunt Louise, with Uncle George and the baby, had appeared on the front steps, Ruth and Paul had rushed out to capture her and escort her over the play-house. She had admired Ruth's room, praised the spotless bathroom, exclaimed over the convenient kitchen and now, as she looked around at the work-play-study-living-room, she patted Paul's hand and gave Ruth a squeeze. "It is just perfect," she said, "and I hope it will always stay so."

"What makes you say that?" asked Ruth, looking a little troubled. "Why shouldn't it stay so?"

"Why, Ruthie," said Aunt Louise, "you know there is a saying, 'A new broom sweeps clean.' That is another way of saying that when a thing is new, it is easy to keep it pretty and take good care of it, but when it is an old story and we are not so interested in it, we are tempted to neglect it."

"I see what you mean," replied Ruth. "When Dorothy Frost first had her bicycle, she used to polish the handle-bars every day and throw a cloth over it at night, to keep off the dust, but now she leaves it out in the rain and doesn't care how it looks."

"But we aren't going to be that way about this play-house," cried Paul. "We've settled just how to take care of it. Ruth is going to see to her room and the bathroom and kitchen, and I am going to see to this room and the porches. Of course, if Jim Nixon or any of the other boys come in and we make candy, we'll clear up the kitchen, and if Ruth has any of the girls here in this room, they'll clear up after themselves, but generally I take care of this room and she takes care of the kitchen."

"That sounds like a fair division of labor," said Uncle George.

"Oh, we have it all beautifully arranged," said Ruth, and she ran across the room to her desk. "Yesterday I made a list for Paul and one for me. They are like the marketing list that I made for the kitchen, only instead of the things to be bought, they are lists of the things about the house that we each have to do."

Aunt Louise studied the two lists with interest.