THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IX. 563 



was not convinced that such was the case because of his confidence in the 

 Babcock test. He was, however, anxious to have the patron satisfied with 

 his tests and he suggested that the patron should send him a sample of the 

 milk from each cow in the herd. He explained how the sample should be 

 taken by milking each cow dry, an then filling a bottle with the thoroughly 

 mixed milk from each cow. The patron did as requested and after awhile 

 brought such samples to the creamery where they were tested. These 

 tests turned out to be nearly all higher than those which this patron had 

 been receiving at the creamery. He was naturally pleased by this show- 

 ing but the manager was inclined to think that either the cream had been 

 allowed to rise somewhat before the farm samples were taken or that the 

 sample bottles had been filled by milking directly into them. Such samples 

 are never a fair representative of the entire amount of milk a cow produces 

 and great care must be used in taking test samples in order to have them 

 tell a true story. The question of sampling milk was again discussed at 

 some length and the patron was finally induced to take another lot of 

 samples from his cows. He returned a few days later without bringing 

 the samples with him but explained that he had discovered the cause of 

 the drop in his test. He had found that there was a small hole in one of 

 his milk cans and that when he set this can of milk into the water tank 

 after milking, that the milk and water changed places. The water which 

 leaked into the milk had diluted and lowered the test. 



The experience converted the patron from suspicion of the test to con- 

 fidence in it and he talked about the incident so much among the other 

 patrons that they were also helped to believe in the Babcock test. 



There are probably many butter makers who could relate similar ex- 

 periences with their patrons but the present indications are that milk test- 

 ing is being done more and more at the farms and where this is the case 

 the patrons are learning many valuable points about their cows and also 

 about milk testing. 



The creamery butter maker may be of a great deal of assistance to 

 his patrons by giving them the benefit of his longer experience in milk test- 

 ing and in aiding them to overcome any difficulty they may have with a 

 new tester. 



The butter maker will find that testers at the farms of his patrons will 

 be a great benefit to profitable dairying and will be a great help to the 

 creamery industry. He should therefore do everything possible to encour- 

 age his patrons to own milk testers. 



Another experience which came to my notice during the past year 

 shows the value of milk testing at the farm. 



Two dairymen each supplied a creamery with about 500 pounds of milk 

 daily from a herd of cows which each man was justly proud of. For some 

 unknown reason the test of one patron's milk was uniformly about one- 

 half per cent higher than the other. This difference occasioned some good 

 natured discussion between the two men but as they both had prefect con- 

 fidence in the Babcock test and were not suspicious of either the butter 

 maker who did the testing or the manager of the factory who did the fig- 



