tion: If you were to take and milk a cow with a lot of manure on her back and that milk go into a bucket and put into a strainer and then pasteurized, wouldn't it still be above the moisture content in the same bacteria in that milk? Would you like to drink it? I wouldn't. That is an important thing.

Another thing. Here mention was made about an abortion. An abortion is not required, that is the test; I mean the abortion test is not required for cows on the market. At this time there has been passed in our district a regulation making an abortion test necessary. My own veterinary tells me that if a cow is an aborter, milk produced from that cow if fed to heifer calves will cause them to abort. That is the same condition as the child.

The CHAIRMAN. You are from Virginia?

Mr. HITE. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. What do you do with cows in which undulant fever is found?

Mr. HITE. What do we do with them?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. HITE. That is an aborter?

The CHAIRMAN. But yes.

Mr. HITE. Butcher them.
The CHAIRMAN. What?

Mr. HITE. Butcher them.

The CHAIRMAN. You butcher them?

Mr. HITE. Yes. In our market there in Leesburg there is a cattle auction there and whenever a cow is blood tested and shown to be a reactor she goes to market and is branded on the side of her head. That means Bang's disease. And there is always a State veterinary there that follows that cow through to the man that buys her and sees that she is killed within 3 days after the purchase.

The CHAIRMAN. These tests that are made, so far as health is concerned, are they made of the men also?

Mr. HITE. Yes, sir. My men are inspected, blood-tested once a year and physically inspected every 3 months by our local doctor, which is, of course, considered as O. K. through the Health Department because he furnishes a certificate to the Health Department here and also one to Richmond.

The CHAIRMAN. I see. Proceed.

Mr. HITE. Now, it seems to me that the opinion has been that this dairy business around here has been quite a paying proposition so far as profits are concerned. I will give you a perfect example—I mean by my own example. I applied for a Federal farm loan several years ago to finance my farm. They came out. I don't think there is a better farm in Loudon County, so far as the farm is concerned. They came up and when they saw what business I was in they were not interested because they had several dairy farms they wanted to get rid of and they didn't need it. That is how profitable it is. And so far as the whole bill is concerned, it opens the market for all of the area, for all the milk produced in the United States, and it will ruin every farmer, every dairy-producing farmer in this section. Now, I sincerely mean that because I believe it will. I know the farmers' condition about as well as any of them, because I know most all of them from attending the association meetings and associating with them. And if this is brought in here it will give the distributor a

chance to take that surplus milk, and there won't be anything come in this area except this milk from other areas. The man is not going to sell you his base and ship it in. It will come through the distributor. He will put it in a car or on a truck and send it in here, and it will be used as a whip handle to whip us on our base price, on our base milk.

And another thing I want to bring out while I think about it. You remember a month ago, a month or two ago, when that 248 cans of 40-percent cream came into Washington and that bootleg cream that they were fighting about. Breaking that 248 ten-gallon cans of cream to 4-percent milk, that is the equivalent of more 4-percent milk than I produce in 6 months-one truck load.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know whether any of this bootleg cream, as you call it, was delivered to people in the city of Washington as milk?

Mr. HITE. As milk?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; plus the process that it went through.

Mr. HITE. No; I don't know that except for one instance; I wish I had the man's name. A man stopped at my house 2 months ago. He was from Washington. I didn't think about it at the time, getting his name. He stopped in there. I don't know him. I had never seen the man before. He came in there. He said, "Do you run the dairy?" I said, "Yes, this is our dairy here." "Well," he says, "I am buying milk in Washington. I cannot understand why the durn stuff won't keep." "Well," I said, "where are you getting it?" He told me where he was getting it. I said, "I don't know why, either, it don't keep." But I had an idea why it wouldn't keep but I couldn't tell him. I wasn't sure. You know, cream that has been in process some time will sour overnight after it has been bottled and after it has been opened. And I just drew the conclusion that man was getting bootleg cream. He was buying his milk at the Fairfax Farm. I don't know this man. I wish afterward I had got his name. I didn't expect all these hearings to come down here or I would have gotten his name. That is all, I guess, on that line.

But there was something brought up here yesterday everybody seemed to doubt. That was concerning the brokerage refunded to the farmer. There is a schedule which is produced and issued by the Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Association which has the percentage of brokerage returned to the producer over a period of so many years. I would like to put that in the record.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will accept it. (The matter referred to is as follows:)

Mr. HITE. Now, Mr. Schulte made the statement yesterday that I would like to ask a question on. How does he propose to eliminate surplus milk with this bill?

The CHAIRMAN. You will have to ask Mr. Schulte that.

Mr. HITE. I was hoping I would get a chance to. There has always been some criticism of our barn scores here. I want to say in regard to that that in my opinion barn scores and bonuses on barn scores have a tendency to produce a cleaner and a better-quality milk than any other method of paying for milk.

Also, with reference to the two-price plan; that is the base and surplus. It has been debated in the legislature; it has been debated through the Agricultural Department; it has not been in the legislature this base and surplus of all commodities. Now, it appears to me like that is the only remedy to control surplus, to have the twoprice plan. If a man wants to produce a product with a surplus and get a small price for it, it is his hard luck. If that is properly controlled, I cannot see any objection whatsoever. You asked me what my daily production is. I had 229 gallons this morning. I get the base on 116. I am not fighting the association concerning that, because it is my own fault. Mr. Derrick told you the other day the amount paid on base is according to your own performance. And it is true. I have seen some of these dairies come over here and leave this association just on that very thing right there. My milk production does not average that the year round. I will average about 175 gallons of milk a day the year around.

You asked a question a minute ago where the information comes from to the producer concerning the bacteria count. That is on your return sheet every month, the bacteria count that you get from the local dairy. The local dairy takes that count because he is responsible for it.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you through?

Mr. HITE. No. But I would like to say this. Reference has been made concerning Chicago shipping milk into this city providing this bill was passed. I don't want to leave it to Chicago. It will be every city on the eastern seaboard. And Mr. Schulte's farmers will have a chance to compete with every dairy section in this country. It will be Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and all the rest of them. And I cannot see any advantage at all to us farmers, and it is a big disadvantage to us.

As to monopolies. In November there was a local dairy meeting. Mr. Derrick was present, and Mr. Derrick had been talking about this bootleg milk some years, several years. He had never been able to prove anything. Whether he is now or not I do not know.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Derrick had been talking for how long?
Mr. HITE. For the last 2 years.

The CHAIRMAN. Two years?

Mr. HITE. About bootleg milk, but he had never been able to show there was bootleg milk. It was his opinion that it existed. He had not accused anybody. Understand that, see? Well, now, if there had been a monopoly within the association concerning milk, why and when and if we got this cut in last November, which was directly caused by this bootleg milk, we got cut 35 cents a hundred on our base milk to compete with that bootleg activity? That conclusively shows

there was no monopoly. If there had been a monopoly that condition would never have existed.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Smith, do you want to ask the witness a question?

Mr. SMITH of Virginia. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. That is all. Thank you, Mr. Hite.
The hearing will be postponed until 7:30 tonight.

AFTER RECESS

The Subcommittee on Public Health, Hospitals, and Charities of the Committee on the District of Columbia, resumed hearings in the committee room of the Old House Office Building, at 7:30 p. m., the Honorable William T. Schulte, chairman of the subcommittee pre-siding.

Mr. SCHULTE. The meeting will please come to order.

Hearings are being resumed tonight on H. R. 6316, a bill introduced by me to amend the act entitled "An act to regulate within the District of Columbia the sale of milk, cream, and ice cream, and for other purposes," approved February 27, 1925.

Our first witness will be Representative Bolles.

TESTIMONY OF STEPHEN BOLLES, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WISCONSIN

(The witness having been sworn by the chairman of the subcommittee was interrogated as follows:)

Mr. SCHULTE. Will you please state your full name and the position you occupy, for the record?

Mr. BOLLES. Stephen Bolles. My residence is Janesville, Wis., Rock County, a Member of Congress from the First District of Wisconsin, and a member of the District Committee.

Mr. SCHULTE. Mr. Bolles, now you are testifying on H. R. 6316, a bill that seeks to amend the act entitled, "An act to regulate within the District of Columbia the sale of milk, cream, and ice cream, and for other purposes," a bill that was approved February 27, 1925. Mr. BOLLES. Yes, sir.

Mr. SCHULTE. How do you feel about it?

Mr. BOLLES. I am in favor of this bill.

Mr. SCHULTE. You are in favor of H. R. 6316?

Mr. BOLLES. Yes, sir.

Mr. SCHULTE. That will allow cream and milk to be shipped into the District of Columbia from other sources besides just this here milkshed, is that it?

Mr. BOLLES. Well, I am in favor of opening this market to milk that will qualify under the terms of this bill.

Mr. SCHULTE. Do you feel that the Wisconsin milk would qualify under this bill?

Mr. BOLLES. Yes; Wisconsin milk will qualify in any market, and that is with the understanding that I am under oath. I believe; have you got here the regulations of the State of Wisconsin?

Mr. SCHULTE. I do not believe that I have them with me, Mr. Bolles, but from reading the Wisconsin regulations I see that they

are very strict as far as health is concerned; but you do not see anything about the frills and the fancies that are required in addition to that.

Mr. BOLLES. They have a good many regulations which provide for the treatment of the cows, stables, and matters of that kind, and it is very complete and I would like to have that put in the record as part of my testimony.

Mr. SCHULTE. I will be mighty happy to do that, Mr. Bolles.
Mr. BOLLES (reading):

Under authority of section 99.10, Wisconsin Statutes, the following standards for the grade of milk and cream are established, and the following regulations governing the marks or tags thereon prescribed, effective August 30, 1937.

Wisconsin grade A raw milk.-Wisconsin grade A raw milk the average bacterial count of which does not exceed 50,000 per cubic centimeter, and which is produced upon dairy farms conforming with the followng rules and regulations:

Cows-tuberculosis and other diseases.-A physical examination and tuberculin test of all cows shall be made before any milk therefrom is sold and at least once every 12 months thereafter by a veterinarian approved by the State livestock sanitary board and said test shall be made, and any reactors disposed of, in accordance with the current requirements approved by the United States Bureau of Animal Industry for accredited herds, or as prescribed by the State livestock sanitary board.

A certificate signed by the veterinarian and filed with the health officer shall be the only valid evidence of the above test. Every diseased animal shall be removed from the herd at once and no milk from diseased cows shall be offered for sale. All reacting animals shall be isolated at once and immediately excluded from the premises. All animals failing to pass the TB test shall be branded with the letters T or TB on the shoulder, hip, or jaw, and removed at once and slaughtered under the direction of the health officer, or disposed of as prescribed by the State livestock sanitary board. Each letter in the brand shall be not less than 2 inches high and 11⁄2 inches wide.

Dairy barns.—(2) Lighting: Such sections of all dairy barns where cows are kept or milked shall have at least 3 square feet of window space for each cow. (3) Air space: Such sections of all dairy barns where cows are kept or milked shall have at least 500 cubic feet of air space per stanchion.

(4) Floors: The floors and gutters of such parts of all dairy barns in which cows are milked shall be constructed of concrete or other impervious and easily cleaned material approved by the Wisconsin Department of Markets and shall be graded to drain properly and shall be kept clean and in good repair. No pigs, fowl, etc., shall be permitted in parts of the barn used for dairy purposes.

(5) Walls and ceiling: The walls and ceilings of all dairy barns shall be finished in a manner approved by the Wisconsin Department of Markets, and shall be kept clean and in good repair. In case there is a second story above that part of the barn in which cows are milked, the ceiling shall be tight.

(6) Cow yard: All cow yards shall be graded and drained as well as practicable and kept clean.

(7) Manure disposal: All manure shall be removed and stored or disposed of in such manner as best to prevent the breeding of flies therein.

Milk house or room.-(8) Construction: There shall be provided a separate milk house room for the handling and storage of milk and the washing and sterilizing of milk apparatus and utensils, provided with a tight floor constructed of concrete or other impervious material and graded to provide proper drainage. The walls and ceilings of the milk house or room shall be of such construction as to permit easy cleaning and shall be finished in a manner approved by the Wisconsin Department of Markets. The milk house or room shall be well lighted and ventilated and all openings effectively screened to prevent the entrance of flies, and shall be used for no other purpose than the handling and storage of milk products and other operations incident thereto. The cleaning and other operations shall be so located and conducted as to prevent any contamination one to the other. The milk room shall not open directly into the barn or into any room used for sleeping or domestic purposes.