No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 281 



au accurate sample and it may uot. Fresh milk, not creamed, well 

 aeiatod and stirred, carted over rough roads and drawn from cows 

 not giving large fat globul4?s, may be accurately sampled thus with a 

 minimum amount of stirring. On the contrary, milk which has 

 creamed, which is a day or more old, from Jersey or Guernsey cows, 

 but slightly shaken in transportation, if in considerable quantity, 

 cannot be mixed with suflficient thoroughness to insure accurate 

 sampling by superficial stirring. The Vermont station several years 

 ago did much work in investigating methods of milk sampling, as a 

 result of which we are prepared to say with a fair degree of assur- 

 ance, that when five hundred pounds of milk somewhat creamed is 

 delivered at the factory, there is no surety of the accuracy of the 

 sample taken therefrom by the dipper method, unless it be stirred 

 for from two to four minutes, round and round) and up and down. 

 Hence it is wise to consider the advisability of choosing some method 

 which is more likely than this one to insure accurate sampling. 



"W'hile there is no method of sampling which is not open to defeat 

 through improper handling, there are methods w'herein there is a 

 greater proportion of automatic action than in the one just con- 

 sidered. The coring method is one of these. Several devices de- 

 signed to core milk or cream are used. The Bcovell sampler, w^hich 

 was used in the World's Fair tests in 1893, is a fair type of this class 

 of implement. It consists of a small brass tube with a perforated 

 sliding cap at the bottom. It is lowered into the fiuid slowly so 

 that it will flow into the tube until it strikes the bottom, when the 

 perforated cap slides over and closes the tube, thus procuring a core. 

 This method of sampling, provided the cream is not separated in 

 clots and the milk is neither loppered or frozen, will take a correct 

 sample if carefully used. It is more likely to take a correct sample 

 than is the dipper method, or, rather, is less likely to take an incor- 

 rect one. This method is much to be preferred to the dipper method 

 for cream sampling. 



This is, however, a method applicable to milk but not to cream 

 sampling which suits me better than either of these, known as the 

 automatic method. The apparatus for this consists of a weigh can 

 covered by a cone-sha])ed wire cloth or wire mesh, and some means 

 0." withdrawing a small stream from tlie outflowing milk. This small 

 stream may be abstracted by means of a small faucet, set at the bot- 

 tom of the can within a few inches of the outlet gate, or by means 

 of a hole punched in the conductor head or spout. The petcock or 

 faucet modification of this device on the whole approves itself to me 

 rather than the other. 



The milk being weighed, both the gate and the petcock are opened 

 and remain opened until all the milk has run out. A small pro- 

 portion, varying according to the size of the orifice of the petcock, is 



