e-ReferenceDesk's College and 50 State Learning Resource Guide

Find Online Colleges

Find Campus Colleges

State Symbols

The official state symbols represent the cultural heritage and natural treasures of each state or the entire United States

Virginia Symbols

Virginia State Beverage

Milk

(lac vaccum)

Adopted in 1982.

On March 19, 2002, at Harvue Farms in Berryville, Governor Mark R. Warner signed a proclamation declaring March 17 - 23 as Agriculture Week in Virginia. After signing the official proclamation, he toasted Virginia's number one industry, agriculture, with the state's official beverage, milk. "To your health," the Governor said to the assembled crowd and to Harvue Encore Lady, handled by farm staff Scott Donnelly.

Where milk comes from and how it's made.
Ever wonder where delicious milk comes from? It all starts with healthy, well-fed cows that live on farms all around America the beautiful.

Did you know that: Milk has been proclaimed the official state beverage or drink in each of the following states:

State Symbol: Milk

All cows are females (males are called bulls).
A cow can't give milk until she's given birth to a calf.
Cows provide 90% of the world's milk supply.
A cow's udder can hold 25-50 pounds of milk at a time -- no wonder she's so eager to be milked -- and a cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.

Can You Say, "I'm Full?"
Cows are BIG eaters. Did you know that cows have four stomachs and eat 90 pounds of food a day? That's probably more than you weigh! A cow that chows on only grass can make 50 glasses of milk a day. But one that eats grass, corn and hay can make 100 glasses of milk a day!

See Moo Milk

§ 7.1-40.1. Official beverage.

Milk is hereby accepted, designated and adopted as the official beverage of this Commonwealth.

(1982, c. 191.) Commonwealth

Exerpt from § 3.1-425. Definitions.
"Milk" means the clean lacteal secretion obtained by the complete milking of one or more healthy cows properly fed, housed and kept; including milk that is cooled, pasteurized, standardized or otherwise processed with a view of selling it as fluid milk, cream, buttermilk (either cultured or natural buttermilk, and including cultured whole milk in its several trade forms) and skimmed milk; the term excludes the lacteal secretion of one or more dairy animals where lacteal secretion is sold or intended to be sold for any other purpose.

State Symbols

State symbols represent things that are special to a particular state.

symbol \ˈsim-bəl\
noun

Etymology:
in sense 1, from Late Latin symbolum, from Late Greek symbolon, from Greek, token, sign; in other senses from Latin symbolum token, sign, symbol, from Greek symbolon, literally, token of identity verified by comparing its other half, from symballein to throw together, compare, from syn- + ballein to throw — more at devil
Date: 15th century

1: Something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention, especially a material object used to represent something invisible.