378 



Testing milk at creameries and cheese factories. — Tho re- 

 sults are giveu of analyses of twenty-seven samples of milk brought by 

 as many patrons in one day to a creamery in tlie State, which at the 

 time was paying 60 cents per hundred pounds for all milk delivered. 

 These show " a variation from 3.35 per cent of fat to 4.91 per cent, or 

 from milk worth 52 cents a liuudred to that worth 74 cents, *. e. 100 

 pounds of the richest milk is worth 142 i>ounds of the poorest." 



a careful stnily of tlie herds of this State will show the evil effects of the present 

 method of payiug for milk. Wherever in this State a cheese factory has been rnn 

 for many years it will be found that the herds in that vicinity all give thin milk and 

 will produce but a small number of pounds of butter a year. The reason of this is 

 evident. The patrons liave been paid entirely by the weight of their milk, and so all 

 their etforts in breeding have been directed to getting cows that would give the 

 largest quantity of milk without regard to its quality, and as a large flow of milk is 

 almost always accompanied with a poor quality of milk, the natural result is that 

 the general character of the milk of the neighborhood is lowered. But the evil goes 

 farther than this. Cows that give this large ilow of milk th:it is watery usually dry 

 up quickly, and there will be found all through this State, in the vicinity of cheese 

 factories, herds of cows of large form and largo udders, which are large consumers of 

 food, give a large flow of thin milk during May and Jnne, and are pretty well dried up by 

 October, so that the total amount of milk produced per cow per year is less than 3,000 

 pounds, and the total butter which this milk will make is scarcely more than 100 

 pounds. On the contrary, the best herds in the State will be found where the product 

 of the herd has been used at home in making butter, and the breeding has been with 

 the view of getting the cow that would make the most butter per year on moderate 

 food. * * * The method of analysis discussed iu this bulletin is so easy and cheap 

 that it would be a very simple matter for each patron of the creamery or cheese fac- 

 tory to bring to the factory samples of milk of his individual cows and learn which 

 were good cows and which ones should be discarded. In this way a single machine 

 at a central point would be sufficient to test the milk of several hundred cows. Any 

 one can see at once what an immense stride Vermont dairying would make under 

 these conditions. 



It is stated that "where the milk is paid for according to the weight 

 a premium is put on watering or skimming," and that " we have found 

 samples of milk that had been tampered with iu every one of the more 

 than twenty creameries that we tested." According to a plan pro- 

 posed for sampling at creameries, the milk, instead of being sampled 

 each day when it is brought, is sampled about three times a week, the 

 samples of each patron's milk being preserved by means of corrosive 

 sublimate, and a single analysis made of the composite sample at the 

 end of a week or ten days. A small quantity of some aniline color is 

 added to the milk to ])revent accidental poisoning. A simj^le sampling 

 tube is described. 



To ascertain the error involved by taking samples of equal size each 

 day, instead, as proposed by Professor Patrick, of taking a sample 

 proportional in size to the quantity of milk brought, tests were made 

 of eighteen lots of creamery milk. Samples were taken daily by both 

 methods for four days. The amounts of butter fat, as indicated by 

 analyses of each lot of samples, are given, together with the differences 

 between the two series of determinations. 



