During the year the following resignations, discharges and deaths have occurred: Resigned, William B. Reading. Discharged, J. Van Gelderen. Died, Charles Burke and Charles A. Warren. It has been the misfortune of the Department to lose during the year by death two of its trusted employees, Mr. Charles Burke of Troy, N. Y. and Mr. Charles A. Warren of Lockport, N. Y. Mr. Burke was employed as an expert and agent in the Department of Agriculture by the first Dairy Commissioner upon the first day of June, 1891, and was continued in the Department to work as such expert and agent from that time until the date of his death. His work was done in such a way as to leave behind him a reputation for integrity, earnestness and assiduity. In his death the Department loses an old, tried and trusted employee whose place it will be hard to fill. Mr. Charles A. Warren was appointed an expert and agent in this Department on the 20th day of April, 1897. He had not worked as long in the Department as Mr. Burke, but what he had done showed him to be a man as earnest, upright and assiduous as any in our employ and one who was devoted heartily to the cause which this Department represents. His death was also a great loss to the Department. The following persons have been employed during the year from the civil service eligible list. W. J. Hurd, C. E. Sackett, Agents; L. F. Brown, C. L. Enders, J. H. Dodge, L. L. Woodford, Nursery Inspectors. The work of this Department consists in enforcing the provisions of the agricultural law, which are as follows: 1. Providing butter and cheese experts to give instruction in the art of making uniform, first-class butter and cheese. 2. Providing against the sale or delivery to factories or creameries of impure, unhealthy or unwholesome milk. 3. Providing against keeping of cows for the production of milk for sale or exchange in a crowded or unhealthful condition, and against feeding such cows on distillery waste or on any substance that will produce unwholesome or unhealthful milk. 4. Regulating the sale of condensed milk. 5. Providing against the manufacture and sale of imitation. butter and its use in boarding-houses and places of public entertainment. 6. Providing against the sale and manufacture of imitation cheese. 7. Providing for branding full cream cheese as "New York State full cream cheese" and against falsely branding butter or cheese. 8. Providing against the manufacture and sale of adulterated or imitation vinegar. 9. Providing for the suppression of infectious and contagious diseases among domestic animals. 10. Providing for the prevention of diseases among bees. 11. Providing for the prevention and suppression of contagious and infectious diseases in fruit trees, plants, etc. 12. Providing against the manufacture and sale of Paris green, except as provided in the statute. 13. Providing for the encouragement of sugar beet culture and the manufacture of beet sugar in the State. 14. Providing against the manufacture and sale of adulter ated linseed or flaxseed oil. 15. Providing against the selling of "bob veal," i. e. meat from calves under four weeks of age or from calves that were diseased at the time of killing. 16. Providing for the distribution of moneys for the promotion of agriculture to the agricultural societies of the State. 17. Relative to Farmers' Institutes. 18. Providing against selling adulterated or imitation maple syrup or maple sugar. 19. To exercise such supervision as is provided relative to the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station and the Agricultural Experiment Station at Cornell University. 20. Relating to process butter and the use of preservatives in dairy products. 21. Relating to the use of coloring matter in food products. 22. Relating to the use of the Babcock milk test. MILK. The Agricultural Law provides by section twenty-two as follows: SECTION 22. Prohibition of the sale of adulterated milk.No person shall sell or exchange, or offer or expose for sale or exchange, any unclean, impure, unhealthy, adulterated or unwholesome milk or any cream from the same, or any unclean, impure, unhealthy, adulterated, colored, or unwholesome cream, or sell or exchange or offer or expose for sale or exchange any article of food made from such milk or cream or manufacture from any such milk or cream any article of food. Section twenty of the Agricultural Law defines adulterated milk as follows: The term, adulterated milk, when so used, means: 1. Milk containing more than eighty-eight per centum of water or fluids. 2. Milk containing less than twelve per centum of milk solids. 3. Milk containing less than three per centum of fats. 4. Milk drawn from cows within fifteen days before and five days after parturition. 5. Milk drawn from animals fed on distillery waste or any substance in a state of fermentation or putrefaction or on any unhealthy food. 6. Milk drawn from cows kept in a crowded or unhealthy condition. 7. Milk from which any part of the cream has been removed. 8. Milk which has been diluted with water or any other fluid, or to which has been added or into which has been introduced any foreign substance whatever. All adulterated milk shall be deemed unclean, unhealthy, impure and unwholesome. The terms, pure milk or unadulterated milk, when used singly or together mean sweet milk not adulterated, and the terms pure cream or unadulterated cream, when used singly or together mean cream taken from pure and unadulterated milk. Section twenty-three of the Agricultural Law provides against delivering or supplying to any butter or cheese factory adulter ated milk and reads as follows: SECTION 23. Regulations in regard to butter and cheese factories. No person shall sell, supply or bring to be manufactured to any butter or cheese factory any milk diluted with water, or any unclean, impure, unhealthy, adulterated or unwholesome milk, or milk from which any of the cream has been taken, except pure skim milk to skim cheese factories. No person shall sell, supply or bring to be manufactured to any butter or cheese factory any milk from which there has been kept back any part of the milk commonly known as strippings, or any milk that is sour, except pure skim milk to skim cheese factories. The owner or proprietor or the persons having charge of any butter or cheese factory, not buying all the milk used by him, shall not use for his own benefit, or allow any of his employes or any other person to use for his own benefit, any milk, cream, butter or cheese or any other product thereof, brought to such factory, without the consent of the owners of such milk or the products thereof. Every butter or cheese manufacturer not buying all the milk he uses, shall keep a correct account of all the milk daily received, of the number of packages of butter and cheese made each day, and the number of packages and aggregate weight of cheese and butter disposed of each day; which account shall be open to inspection to any person who delivers milk to such factory. Whenever manufacturers of butter or cheese purchase milk upon the basis of the amount of fat contained therein and use for ascertaining the amount of such fat what is known as the Babcock test, or whenever the proceeds of co-operative creameries and cheese factories are allotted on the basis of determinations of milk fat by the Babcock test, the bottles and pipettes used in such test shall before use be examined by the director of the New York Experimental Station. If such bottles are found to be properly constructed and graded so as to accurately show the amount of fat contained in milk, each of them shall be legibly and indelibly marked "S. B." No bottle shall be so marked except as herein provided nor shall be used in any such test by such manufacturers, unless so examined and marked. The acid used in making such test by such manufacturers shall be examined from time to time by competent chemists employed by the commissioner of agriculture and if found not to be of sufficient strength the use of such acid shall be prohibited. The commissioner of agriculture or persons employed by him for that purpose may at any time assist in mailing tests of milk received at a butter or cheese factory for the purpose of determining the efficiency of tests usually made at such factory. All persons using other than standard bottles or acid which is not of the required strength to accurately determine the amount of fats in milk, shall be subject to the penalties prescribed by section thirty-seven of this article, and shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. The enforcement of the milk law is one attended with as many, if not more, difficulties than any other with which this Department is charged on account of the volume of the commodity that has to be guarded, New York city last year taking for consumption over fourteen million forty-quart cans. The population of New York city being approximately three-sevenths of that of the State, and assuming that people elsewhere consume practically the same amount of milk per capita it would make the milk consumption of the State of New York thirty-three million fortyquart cans, to say nothing of the amount of milk delivered to |