THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IX. 569 



it has always seemed to me to be safer to use less cream, say nine grams, 

 in a test bottle that will measure thirty per cent fat, than to try to test 

 eighteen grams in a bottle that will measure sixty per cent fat. This use 

 of the thirty per cent cream bottle will also make it possible to test all 

 kinds of liquid dairy products in one tester or centrifuge. 



The thirty per cent cream test bottles, however, need some attention. 

 They have been made in the past of the same length as the milk test bot- 

 tls but the diameter of the neck is increased in order to hold the larger 

 quantity of fat that is separated from cream than from milk. For some 

 unknown reason the manufacturers have been gradually increasing the 

 diameter of the neck and contracting the length of the scale on the cream 

 test bottles so that in some cases the entire graduation from zero to thirty 

 per cent occupies a space of only two inches in length. This brings the 

 lines of the scale very closely together so that the graduations which rep- 

 resent one-half per cent of fat are not much father apart than the width of 

 an ordinary pencil mark. 



With such test bottles it is almost impossible to read a test accurately 

 to much less than one per cent fat. This is a serious mistake and when 

 there are so many other difficulties in the way of testing cream accurately, 

 an effort should be made to increase the length of the graduated scale 

 rather than to diminish it. 



Realizing the necessity of this I have had a cream test bottle made of 

 the usual length of a milk test bottle, but in order to give it a longer neck 

 than cream test bottles generally have, I had the bulb of the bottle cut 

 down so that it has a capacity of about 45 c. c. up to the zero mark of the 

 scale instead of 55 c. c, which is the capacity of the bulb of the old cream 

 test bottle. This size of bottle 40 to 55 c. c, I find is plenty large enough 

 for mixing the cream and acid before whirling the test bottles in the cen- 

 trifuge, and by cutting it down the neck of the test bottle can be made 

 longer. The necks of many cream test bottles on the market are only about 

 three inches long; that of the new cream bottle is at least fouMnches long 

 and by making the diameter less the graduations of the neck are placed so 

 far apart that it is easy to read so fine as one-fourth per cent fat instead 

 of one per cent as was only possible in the old style of cream test bottle. 

 In fact, the scale representing one per cent on the new cream test bottle 

 is as long as that of two per cent in the old bottles. This elongation of the 

 neck is a great help in reading the test accurately and to smaller fractions 

 of one per cent than one is able to read with the old cream test bottle. 



\ 



CALCULATING CREAM DIVIDENDS. 



When cream only is received at a factory, the payment of patrons by 

 the Babcock test is made on the same general plan as at whole milk fac- 

 tories. There are, however, at the present time, many creameries which 

 receive both milk and cream from the patrons. When such is the case the 

 cream patron should receive pay for the fat in the skim milk left at the 

 farm as well as for that in the cream he delivered. If this is done he will 

 be paid on the same basis as the whole milk patron who has his dividend 

 calculated on the total fat in his milk. In order to carry out this system 

 37 



