STATE DAIRY ASSOCIATION. 329 



a lower test than he deserved, so that a man Hving near that creamery 

 who dehvered them 4.4 milk would get only a 3.6 test. But that was 

 not the fault of the Babcock test, but of the creamery man. When w^e 

 test a sample of milk, if we are careful to mix it thoroughly, pouring it 

 carefully back and forth in the bottle, then measure 17.6 c. c. and go 

 according to the rules of the test, it will be very accurate. 



For instance, your milk tests 3.6. What does that mean? In one 

 hundred pounds of your milk there are 3.6 pounds of butterfat. Mind 

 you now, we are reading to the third place in decimals. I may read that 

 test and say it does not quite test 3.6, count it 3.5. We have seen recent 

 letters from farmers where they made a great disturbance because there 

 was a difference of one-tenth. Nobody claims that the Babcock test is 

 absolute, that you can tell exactly by it the amount of butterfat In >our 

 milk. You know if you do not lose one-tenth of one per cent you are los- 

 ing a small amount, and the next time the same man may put it vp 

 the width of a hair and you will read it 3.6 may be, a little in your favor, 

 but in a whole year's work the amount that one could lose would be so 

 small that he ought to be ashamed of himself to make any complaint. 



We get letters right along asking "will it pay to sell 20 or 30 per 

 cent cream ?" We answer something like this, it will pay you to deliver 

 30 to 35 per cent cream to your creamery man. Why? Because you are 

 paid according to the quality of your cream and not according to 

 the quantity that you deliver. Having different creamery men weigh 

 the sameple of cream that is being tested, is the only correct way, and 

 all our up-to-date creameries are putting in high priced scales, so that 

 they can weigh cream and pay you for what you send them. The cream- 

 ery has no use for skim milk. Twenty per qent cream has more sugar 

 in it than 30 per cent cream has, decomposition takes place and it be- 

 comes sour and you have been disposing of a valuable product by giving 

 them skim milk, valuable not only for feeding purposes but for putting 

 back fertility into your soil. It is of no use to the creamery and they 

 will tell you so. I know of companies in northern Illinois that have 

 offered more for cream testing 29 or 30 per cent or below that ; and yet 

 farmers that have that high testing cream will deliver larger quantities 

 of low testing cream, thinking that they were getting larger profits, an 

 incorrect idea. If you deliver 20 per cent cream from 100 pounds of 4 

 per cent milk you have delivered 20 pounds of butterfat. Twenty per 

 cent of 100 is 20, a simple case of percentage — you have delivered 20 

 pounds of butterfat and 80 pounds of skim milk. Supposing you deliver 

 70 pounds of 30 per cent cream, you have delivered 21 pounds of but- 

 terfat, one pound more, and only 40 pounds of skim milk. You have 

 saved yourself the expense of shipping 40 pounds of skim milk to 



