DAIRY WORK AT THE EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 365 



allowino- the milk to sour and then churning- the whole milk, may be 

 studied tVoin all sides, in comparison with imi)roved methods, and the 

 dittereiices brought out as to the recovery of the butter fat, the compo- 

 sition of the butter, its qualities, grade, marketability, and behavior on 

 keeping. The improvement of dairy stock and its management should 

 also prove a profitable line of work, and in this, coiiperation with lead- 

 ing farmers in testing the milk of their cows and studying their rations 

 suggests itself 



There is thus far a deficiency of exact work to show the relation 

 between the food and the creaming of the milk, the churning of the 

 cream, and the genei-al (qualities of the butter. As a rule, feeding 

 experiments with cows stop with the yield of milk and its average 

 composition. Enough work has been done to show that certain feeding 

 stuffs have a marked effect on the butter. This is noticeably true of 

 cotton seed and cotton-seed meal, and we have a few experiments indi- 

 cating- the superior effect of steamed cotton seed. Systematic study 

 along these lines is to be desired, for just such knowledge is of import- 

 ance in fixing the real value of different coarse and concentrated foods 

 for butter making and in indicating the best dairy foods to grow and 

 to purchase. 



A few years ago Prof. Adolf Mayer reported experiments on the 

 effects of various feeding stuffs on the volatile fatty acids, the hardness, 

 etc., of butter, and gave a list of coarse and concentrated feeding stuffs 

 arranged in the order in which their effects were apparent. On the 

 basis of this work he advanced the hypothesis that rations rich in car- 

 bohydrates have the effect of increasing the volatile fatty acids. This 

 interesting work has never been corroborated or carried further. There 

 is a broad field for study of the specific effect of the food or its constit- 

 uents on the milk and butter, and such work would form an interesting 

 contribution to the science of the subject and to our knowledge of the 

 physiological function of milk secretion. 



Furthermore, the question as to the best ration for dairy cows, as far 

 as comi)osition is concerned, is a very live subject. The question is not 

 so much whether the percentage of fat in the milk can be increased by 

 feeding, but relates to the amount of protein and other nutrients which 

 in the long run will give tlie best results, as far as the yield of milk and 

 butter and the health of the cow are concerned. There has been con- 

 siderable work upon this with varying results; and the study of the 

 ])ractice of intelligent dairy farmers in different parts of the country 

 has developed the fact that they have widely different opinions as to 

 the amount of nutrients, as expressed in the amounts of feeding stuffs, 

 which the cow can use to the best advantage. The experiments have 

 been of far too short duration to settle this question. We have learned, 

 for instance, that by feeding rations rich in protein we can crowd the 

 cow to her utmost (•a])acity, for a time at least, but how long this can 

 be kept up and what the final effect will be on the health of the cow 

 8908— No. 5 2 



