SECRETARY'S REPORT. 



137 



Let us suppose the dairyman provided with a stock of good 

 cows ; the next point is to bestow proper treatment, and especially 

 to feed them well. No dairyman can afford to do otherwise. Look 

 at it. A cow is wanted to give milk, and good milk. She cannot 

 make it out of nothing. The more milk we want, the more mate- 

 rial must be supplied to make it of. The reasoning adopted by 

 Mr. Arnold, above, with a slight modification, will meet this case. 

 Be your cows ever so good, they must be supported, their own 

 systems must be maintained, waste must be repaired, respiration 

 sustained — or in a word, the machine must be kept in working 

 order ; and it is only what the cow can be induced to eat and to 

 digest over and above what is required for maintenance of the animal, 

 which goes to make milk. 



Milk is a secretion ; that is, it is' secreted or separated by the 

 action of a gland, and. mainly or wholly from the blood which 

 passes to it. We know very little of the nature of secretion, or of 

 the forces which are at play in it ; but we know the fact that cer- 

 tain glands have the power of appropriating parts of the organism, 

 or of the food, in order to produce certain fluids. As these secre- 

 tions come from the blood, this fluid must be supplied with the 

 necessary materials ; for the mammary gland of a cow can no more 

 make or separate something from nothing than any other apparatus 

 or machine can do it. Milk is variable in composition, depending 

 partly on the peculiarities of the cow, or of her glandular system, 

 but largely also on the food supplied, both its quantity and its 

 quality. If the food contain much fatty and starchy matter, the 

 milk will be richer in butter than if they be scanty ; if the food be 

 rich in vegetable albumen or other nitrogenous substances, the 

 milk will be richer in casein.* 



On page *I9 is mentioned a remarkable instance, to which special 

 attention is invited, showing the efiect of scanty and innutritions 

 food ; in which by actual analysis milk was found to contain only a 

 quarter part as much butter as milk produced under more favora- 

 ble conditions. In such cases, be it remembered, it is the butter, 

 chiefly, which is wanting. The casein fell off considerably, but not 

 nearly so much as the butter. If milk is yielded at all, its propor- 

 tion of casein rarely falls below three per cent., and it does not 



* This last rule holds, however, only up to a certain point, say about five per cent. ; 

 beyond which albuminous as well as oily foods only increase the proportion of butter 

 in the milk. . 



