10 March, 1916.] The Practical Economy of Skim Milk. 163 



The man who knows what protein means to a ration also knows 

 the difficulty of procuring it in adequate quantity. No doubt the 

 water, existing in such quantity as it does in skim milk, is rather a 

 deibaser — in cold weather, at all events; but the man who would complain 

 of the excess of protein is surely suffering from an embarrassment of 

 riches. 



Protein, and particularly digestible protein, is the ingredient in which 

 nearly all the common home-grown foodstuffs of the farm are more or 

 less deficient, and it is really the chronic want of a sufficiency of it which 

 generally embarrasses dairy farmers in all their animal-feeding opera- 

 tions — if they only knew ft. It is just here where skim milk, with its 

 more than enough protein, can be put to its utmost practical use. Skim 

 milk contains practically all the natural protein of the milk, as well 

 as the milk-sugar and mineral matter. Just as protein is indispensable 

 for flesh formation, mineral matter is equally so for bone formation. 

 These two formations — flesh and bone^ — constitute real growth in the 

 animal, as distinct from the mere accumulation of fatty tissue. It 

 should be evei-y bacon-producer's care to so feed his animals that fat 

 formation waits on flesh formation, and good bacon on both. This 

 cannot be accomplished without adequate protein and mineral matter — 

 the peculiar virtue of skim milk. 



In no other food in nature does either protein or mineral matter 

 occur as assimilable and as palatable as in the curd and ash respectively 

 of milk — either whole or skimmed. In having a feeding material of 

 such nature daily to his hand, tbe dairy farmer is certainly in a 

 favoured position as a producer of prime bacon. It calls, however, 

 for proper use, viz., that of balancing other fodders not so plentifully 

 endowed with precious protein. 



Excess of any Constituent Means Deficient Consumption 



OF Another. 



The mere presence of protein, fat, starch, and mineral matter in a 

 food is not enough — a further necessity is that they be present in projjer 

 proportion. Skim milk's one-sidedness is due to its excessive protein- 

 content and the comparative deficiency of carbohydrate : but another 

 imperfection which must also be allowed for is the water content; — 

 superabundant, yet dissociable^ — which unduly adds to the bulk. 



If skim milk alone be the pig's portion, his stomach becomes fully 

 distended long before he has acquired a sufficiency of starchy ingredient. 

 Over-gorging is the only alternative to going deficient— neither of which 

 is ever associated with maximum returns. Some farmers foolishly think 

 that, by souring the milk and discarding the wliey, tliey are getting 

 rid of the surplus water only. This is a serious mistake, because the 

 water removed in this way takes along with it the milk-sugar — the 

 starchy ingredient in which the skim milk is already deficient. 



The Rational Method of Balancing hy Addition. 

 Extraction of tlie surplus water is not commercially practicable, and 

 would be folly to attempt, seeing that the same desired effect can »>e 

 arrived at by suppleinenting the milk with other foodstuffs over-rich 

 in starch (to balance the surplus protein of the milk solids) and as free 

 from water as possible (to balance the excessive water-content of the 

 milk). TIip ideal "thickening," therefore, for skim milk, should he the 



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