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floors and proper ventilation, and should be kept scrupulously clean. These requirements need not involve any considerable outlay.
21. Secondly, the spread of infection may be influenced by methods of management. The account given in a later section of the four principal diseases of cattle shows what an important and largely preventible part infected material plays in the spread of infection. For example, if hay is allowed to come into contact with dung before being fed to cattle, or if, should a cow slip her calf in a pasture, access to the spot by the rest of the herd is not prevented, there will be serious danger of infection. Unless precautions are taken, mastitis is spread by the hand of the milker. Unless calving boxes are properly disinfected after use they may spread contagious abortion. The list might be extended indefinitely. The farmer with a knowledge of hygienic principles may, by attention to such details as these, greatly reduce the incidence of disease in his herd.
22. Thirdly, disease is largely spread by contact with cattle from other herds. If a herd is self-contained, being replenished exclusively by home-breeding, the danger of infection from outside is very slight. But when cattle are bought in, there is a great risk of infection, even if the bought cattle can be transferred to their The new home without contact with animals from a third herd. risk is obviously increased when animals pass through an open market.
23. The effect of outside purchases in spreading diseases in herds is illustrated to some extent by a table taken from the report on the Cambridge investigation referred to in paragraph 15 above, which we reprint in appendix 4. This table shows that herds which buy in a relatively small part of their total replacements suffer less from disease than other herds. But it does not show separately herds which are entirely supported by home breeding, which should be much less subject to disease than herds in which buying in takes place even upon a small scale.
24. It thus appears that by far the most important part in preventing infection must be taken by the farmer himself. Govern- ment, however, may help by providing information and advice, by the encouragement of research, and in other ways indicated further on in our report.
(iv) The movements of cattle in Great Britain.
25. In view of their importance in spreading disease, we must call attention to the extensive movements of cattle which take place in Great Britain. Not only are cattle moved between neighbouring farms, one specialising in the production of milk, and another in the rearing of young stock; but analogous movements also take place between districts. Variations in the quality of land, in climate, in proximity to a market and in farming practice combine to make
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this specialisation inevitable. Consequently the herds of milking cows established round the larger centres of population, or in districts organised to supply these with liquid milk, are largely, often entirely, dependent on heifers from Ireland, Cumberland and the more out of the way parts of the country for the replacement of wastage. In addition to these movements of milking cattle, movements of cattle for beef production take place on a much larger scale. The eastern and midland counties of England and Scotland draw large numbers of store cattle from the west and from Ireland.
(b) Methods of milk distribution.
26. Milk reaches the consumer through a variety of channels. The size of individual retail businesses varies from that of large combines, such as United Dairies, to that of the small business with a daily turnover of a few gallons. Milk may be sold loose or in bottles; it may or may not undergo a number of processes, such as filtering, cooling and heat treatment; it may be transported great distances before sale, or it may be consumed at the point of production. Without discussing this complex trade in detail, there are certain broad distinctions to be noted.
27. At one end of the scale of distribution there is the large concern, confined to large towns, for which milk has in any case to be brought from considerable distances. The trade has consequently developed economical methods of transporting milk, and, by means of various forms of treatment, of improving its keeping qualities. These have reduced the advantage which the milk-producing areas near large towns formerly possessed over more distant areas, and milk is now being brought into London, for example, from districts where it can be cheaply produced. Previously, this milk was used for the manufacture of milk products and the rearing of stock. The modern methods are to establish local collecting stations in which milk is cooled, cleaned and bulked, to transport bulked milk either by rail or road in glass-lined tanks, each holding 3,000 gallons, to the consuming centre, and to subject the milk at these centres to heat treatment. The milk so treated is either bottled and sold directly at retail, or resold in bulk at wholesale.
28. At the other end of the scale is found the producer-retailer, selling his milk directly to consumers in villages and in all but the largest towns and on the circumference of the latter. Though he sometimes produces on a substantial scale, he is none the less a comparatively small retailer. He often sells his milk unbottled in the immediate neighbourhood of his farm without submitting it to any process, except in some cases cooling. A feature of the trade of some of these distributors is that they establish a special reputa- tion for their own milk, which they would lose if their milk was bulked. Between these two extremes there lie any number of inter-
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