204 agriculture; of maine. 



DEMONSTRATION IN JUDGING MILK, CREAM AND 



BUTTER. 



By Prof. P. A. CampbelIv. 



In scoring dairy cows, beef cattle, horses or dairy products, 

 you must have in mind an ideal by which you are measur- 

 ing. For instance, if you are scoring butter for flavor, you say 

 that 40 is perfect so far as flavor is concerned. You taste this 

 butter and' find that it does not come up to your anticipation of 

 what perfect butter should be, in its flavor. We will say that 

 it comes up to within an eighth of what you think is perfect. 

 One-eighth of forty is five. The score which you should give 

 that butter on flavor would be 35. If on the score card for 

 m.ilk 45 is allowed on flavor, and the sample you are scoring 

 comes up to within a ninth, the score you would give to the milk 

 for flavor would be 40. 



Just a word relative to the flavors we have in milk, cream and 

 butter. Perhaps we wonder where the flavors come from in 

 butter, — I mean the undesirable flavors. If we stop to con- 

 sider this for a few moments, we will have to start back with the 

 cow, whether the flavors are in the milk, cream or butter. We 

 know that the desirable flavors, aroma, etc., are dependent large- 

 ]y upon the food that the cow eats. It is also true that some of 

 the very undesirable tastes which we get are dependent upon the 

 food which the cow eats. Therefore it is necessary that we take 

 those things into consideration, if we are dairymen. I do not 

 know anything about the milk and cream which you have here, 

 but it will be very strange if some of these samples will not give 

 you a distinct flavor of ensilage or turnips, or perhaps ragweed 

 in the oat fodder, and you will get sometimes, a sharp, bitter 

 twang. It may be the cows have been fed dry corn stalks just 

 previous to milking and the dust from them gives a flavor which 

 is not particularly bad but is undesirable. What I mean is this, — 

 if in anticipation of getting through your chores earlier you 

 throw out the silage before milking and the atmosphere is per- 

 meated with the silage odor, the chances are very strong that 

 .the taste will be incorporated in the milk. I have known people 



