VERMONT DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. IOI 



ness. We have been considering facts to-day, the logical sequence of 

 facts; centrifugal force applied to milk to separate the cream. Fat is 

 lighter than the rest of the milk, and we can separate it by centrifugal 

 force far more effectively than by the old process. That is one thing 

 science has done for us. 



We have in our day learned something about testing milk. Dr. 

 Peck in the laboratory at the University of Wisconsin worked about a 

 month or six weeks, worked hard, figuring on the problem of a simple 

 system of testing milk. Scientists before him had tried to work out the 

 same problem and Dr. Peck came along with the fact that sulphuric 

 acid would destroy the solids not fat in milk when used in the right 

 proportion, so Dr. Peck used that to destroy the solids, and this has 

 amounted in the State of Wisconsin to about $800,000 in the amount of 

 butter fat saved in the skim milk and butter milk. It is science applied 

 to butter and cheese which has enabled us to take a long step iorward. 

 The microscope has come to us so we are able to see things we could 

 not see with the naked eye. The microscope showed what the fact was 

 of the number of globules in a drop of milk. There were many of 

 them; how many? About 150 million in a single drop. How was a man 

 to count the number of globules in a single drop? It would be almost 

 impossible to count that number in the length of time a drop of milk 

 would last. Dr. Peck took a glass tube such as you would buy at a 

 drug store, heated it hot in a flame, and his assistant would take hold of 

 the end of it and run with it until it would break. In that way they drew 

 it out into a little fine hair like tube. Then he took milk and diluted it 

 fifty times; where otherwise there would be fifty drops there would be but 

 one drop, and put the drop of milk into the tube so that the fat globules 

 in the glass tube could be counted. The length of the tube could be 

 measured, the temperature could be measured, the volume could be 

 figured and it is possible in that way to count 60, 70, 80, 100 or 150 million 

 of globules in a drop of milk. This is a scientific feat that has been 

 worked out by a man using his brains in the application of science to 

 these affairs. We find that the globules decrease in size as the period of 

 lactation increases, which is the explanation of why cream will not rise 

 as readily on strippings milk as it will on the milk of other cows; in 

 all these things science has come to our help. 



Again, when the hand separators came into use we were told we could 

 produce a cream that would have the same amount of fat in it as a 

 cream raised by the curative process, and that we could get all the 

 butter fat out of the skim milk so that there would be no loss. But the 

 customers complained that the cream was not so thick absolutely as the 

 cream of the same per cent, of fat raised by the curative process. 



Our scientific men found these little globules were evenly distrib- 

 uted when the milk was first drawn from the cow, but when the milk had 

 stood a while they were gathered up into little groups, and that the 

 cream raised by the curative process had the globules in groups, 

 whereas the cream raised by the separator had them distributed through 

 the milk. 



