52 THIRTIETH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



the milk gathering - system one of the heaviest items is the cost 

 of making- the butter is the carriage of the milk and skimmilk. 

 About eighty-seven per cent, of this transported matter is water 

 ^and only four or five per cent, of the whole amount is taken at 

 the creamery. The labor expended in transporting this water 

 to and from the creameries is something enormous and ought 

 to be better employed. It will be a great day for creameries 

 when science points out some practicable, economical and 

 profitable use for skimmilk at the creameries. It seems use- 

 less today for science to tell us that the four or five per cent, 

 taken out of the milk at the creamery was that portion of the 

 solids of the least value as human food and that the curds car- 

 ried back and thrown to the swine is rich in nutrition in its 

 most digestable form. The demonstration made by Edward 

 Atkinson and others that cheese made from skimmilk when 

 cooked makes a very palatable, economical and wholesome 

 food, seems to make but little headway in overcoming the well 

 earned prejudice against skimmilk cheese; but I am looking 

 for light along this line of skimmilk that will work changes in 

 our present dairy system. 



It has been published with more or less authority from 

 creamery sources that herds of cows giving about four per 

 cent, fat in their milk were the most profitable cows for 

 creamery work. This statement was made before one of the 

 meetings of this association by a man having an extensive 

 creamer}' experience. This statement, if true, seemed to me 

 very important because if the four per cent, cow is the most 

 profitable animal for the creamery she should also be the best 

 cow for private butter making. If the statement is correct as 

 a rule then as the per cent of butter fat recedes from four per 

 cent each way a cow or herd of cows would become the less 

 profitable. I applied this rule to my own herd using the Bab- 

 cock test on composite samples and weighing the milk at in- 

 tervals. I found my most profitable cows giving six per cent. 

 I overhauled the records of the experiment station and of the 

 Chicago test and as a class the high per cent, cows appear to 

 have the advantage. I discover no particular relation between 

 the amount of milk a cow gives and her per cent of butter fat. 

 Contrary to the quite common opinion that a cow giving a 

 small amount of milk is rich in butter fat it may be the reverse 

 and a cow giving a large flow yields a much higher per cent, 

 of fat in her milk. Prom the data at hand it appears that the 

 cows giving the higher per cent, of butter fat produces butter 

 as a rule at a less cost per pound than the cows giving the low 

 per cent. The difference between six per cent milk and three 

 per cent, is a difference of one hundred per cent, requiring 

 twice the amount of milk to produce a pound of butter conse- 



