ndled, the number of agents employed and the
public interest incited, the office of dairy and food commissioner
outranks any other control agency. In some states the office is an
elective one, and the questions with which the office has to deal
become a part of the state political campaign.

The importance of the inspection of dairy and food products grows out
of the fact that not only is the consumer, hence all the world,
interested, but the execution of these laws touch large commercial
interests. Not only are meat packers, distillers and brewers deeply
interested, but the wholesale and retail grocers and, more recently,
the manufacturing and prescribing druggists, are vitally concerned.

Not many years ago the inspection of dairy products, particularly
control of the traffic in oleomargarine, was the chief function of
this office. To-day the enforcement of laws concerning pure foods,
liquor and drugs is of much greater importance.

Interstate commerce in oleomargarine is now regulated through the
enactment of an internal revenue law requiring a tax of ten cents a
pound on colored oleomargarine and one-fourth of a cent a pound on
uncolored oleomargarine and, further, by prescribing the character of
package and method of marking all oleomargarine entering into
interstate commerce. State agencies are charged with the duty of
requiring the compliance of local dealers and restaurateurs with the
general features of the federal law. Some states, however, prohibit
entirely the sale of colored oleomargarine within the state.

PURITY IN DAIRY PRODUCTS

Attempts to define what is pure milk, cream, butter or cheese have been
fraught with much difficulty. Thus, for example, legal definitions of
pure milk have resulted in some cows giving illegal milk. In some
instances the law has declared simply that whole milk is milk from
which no cream has been removed; in others, the minimum amount of
butter fat has been prescribed; in still others, the minimum amount of
total solids containing a minimum proportion of butter fat has been
made the basis of legal milk. In like manner full cream cheese has been
defined as cheese made from whole milk or from milk from which only a
given amount of cream has been removed, while in other instances the
minimum amount of butter fat which full cream cheese may contain is
prescribed. The wide variation in the amount of butter fat carried by
cream has caused much jocular comme