McHenry County

What U. S. county gives the most milk? McHenry County, Ill. What U. S. county has the most sick cows, the greatest number of infected farmyards ? What county do dairymen speak of as the “black belt?’ McHenry County, Ill., at once the most fertile and the most diseased. More than 80% of the cows of this county have been shown by the tuberculin test to be tuberculous, yet McHenry County supplies Chicago with most of its milk. Last week despite supplications of “downstate” farmers, the Chicago Board of Aldermen proposed an ordinance which requires that all milk sold in Chicago shall come from healthy cows. Physicians of Chicago wrote an open letter to Governor Small in which they stated:

“It is a well established fact that cattle infected with tuberculosis give less milk and of a poorer quality than is given by healthy cows. Moreover, tuberculous cattle are a menace to all of the other live stock in that hogs particularly are likely to become infected from the cattle. In this way, tremendous economic injury is done to the live stock breeders of the state through the dissemination of tuberculosis from cattle. A number of American cities have shown that it is possible to insist on milk from tuberculin-tested herds, with the result that herds in their vicinity are relatively free from the disease, as compared with the mass infection of cattle in the Illinois Dis-trict.”

Alderman Robert R. Jackson, framer of the ordinance, said: “The dairy farmers say they will lose money if their cows suffering from tuberculosis are killed. What about the loss of the health of Chicago’s 3,000,000 people ? If we must choose between human lives and money, then this committee should fight for lives, and for the protection of our milk supply.”

The downstaters replied: “Give us time. …”