184 MASSACHUSETTS AGEICULTURE. 



good water, both in the barn aud field, to produce good, pure 

 milk, and yet we are apt sometimes to overlook obvious facts. 

 It would be well not to forget our experience in the fall of 

 1870, and, to some extent, that of 1871, when our cattle were 

 compelled to subsist to a greater or less extent on a poor 

 herbage and obliged to quench their thirst from some distant 

 spring or some low and muddy spot or stagnant pool, when 

 the milk during the process of coagulation, and more particu- 

 larly in the process of cooking the curd at a temperature of 

 ninety-eight degrees, disclosed the noxious impurities imbibed 

 with bad water and taken in with poor herbage, which made 

 their unmistakable appearance in the vapor that arose from 

 the heated whey and curd. Impurities in the air may be in- 

 haled into the lungs of the cow and conveyed from the lungs 

 to the blood through the air-cells and by the glands from the 

 blood to the milk. 



Cleanliness in milking and a thorough cleaning of all milk- 

 utensils are subjects which have always occupied our attention 

 and have always been considered of vital importance, yet 

 there are some whose milk is odoriferous, and there are some 

 whose milk makes the whole vat too acid to make good cheese. 

 Eight here arises an evil of the greatest magnitude to the 

 maker. How can it be prevented ? The more animal matter 

 enters into the milk the sooner fermentation and decompo- 

 sition takes place. 



If from any cause the cow has become unusually excited, 

 the blood of the cow is not purified by the air in the lungs, 

 and consequently becomes loaded with impurities which are 

 taken up more or less by the secretory glands and find their 

 way into the milk to perform their unfortunate mission. 



" Thorough cleansing and scalding of all milk-utensils " is a 

 maxim that should be repeated night and morning ; a little 

 leaven afiects the whole mass in time. The active principle 

 of ferment must be destroyed. This cannot be done efi'ectually 

 with water moderately hot ; it should be at a temperature of 

 two hundred and twelve degrees, boiling-heat. But after all 

 the care and nicety in this regard, the milk does not always 

 retain its purity and sweetness. 



The practice of stirring the evening's milk is undoubtedly 

 of great advantage, but a still greater one is claimed by more 



