382 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



Prof. W. O. Atwater read an elaborate lecture on tbe " Science of 

 cattle-feeding," which was followed by a brief discussion. Mr. Hall C. 

 Bnrleigh, iui extensive breeder of Herefords, said he believed in prac- 

 tice with theory in this matter of feeding stock, and in all other subjects 

 pertai;iing to larming. His own interest in it had led him to examine 

 carefuily into mure tlian one hundred published experiments of feeding, 

 but few of which he regarded as of any value. He believed in plenty 

 of good hay for feeding, in science as well as practice in farming, in 

 brains as well as muscle. From his own trials he was satisfied 18J- bush- 

 els of corn* or oat meal were equal to one ton of first-quality hay for 

 feeding to farm-stock. A pair of two-year old steers he once owned 

 gained 14^ inches in girth in six months by feeding them with good 

 early-cut hay, and two quarts per day of corn, barley, and beau meal 

 mixed in equal parts. 



Mr. Harris Lewis said the experiments reported by Professor Atwater 

 were very elaborate, and he feared he should underrate them, and yet 

 they were not of the slightest value to our farmers. It is true that 

 science is founded on experimentSj but these German experiments are 

 worthless to us because their crops, soil, and climate are so diflfereut 

 from our own. We never know at what stage in the growth of the straw 

 or grass the experiment is made, and straw as they have it in Germany 

 Is so valuable as to even produce fat on animals to which it is fed. But 

 fast as we are, our straw and grass both get overripe before they are 

 cut, and our straw, as compared with that used to feed domestic animals 

 in Germany, is of very little value. To feed straw to a profit we should 

 cut it green and leave the grain on. There is nothing better than grass 

 to feed an animal. J^fothing that can be given cau add to the quality of 

 this food, for grass is the perfection of cattle-food, and he was satisfied 

 if farmers fed anything less than grass they are feeding at a loss. Early- 

 cut hay, that cut in the blossom, makes the very best winter food for 

 cattle. 



In a valuable paper on the various taints, odors, and adulterations of 

 milk, Mr. Harris Lewis, president of the New York State Agricultural 

 Society, makes the following statements : 



Milk, when drawu from the cow, often contains taints and odors introduced by the 

 cow, from an iuipuro atmosphere she has been compelled to breathe, from imy)ure or 

 filthy water she has drunk, and from improper food she has eaten. These taints and 

 odors may be called natural taints and odors ; the three last may always bo avoided by 

 proper care in furnishing the cow pure air to breathe, pure water to drink, and suita- 

 lile food to eat ; but the first (the animal odor) is always present whenever the milk is 

 drawn from the cow, but always varied in intensity or degree of otiensiveness by the 

 condition of the atmosphere, the temperature of the atmosphere, the condition of the 

 cow in regard to sickness or health, the food she eats, the water she drinks, the air she 

 breathes, and last, but not least, by the ti'eatmeut she receives. Nearly, if not all, these 

 natural taints and odors may be expelled from the milk by heating it to 140° as soon 

 as it is drawn from the cow, and then aerating it while warm. 



While wo have no convenient contrivance for heating milk, (which is to be regret- 

 ted,) we have an admirable one for aerating it, invented by A. P. Bussey, of Now York. 

 This aerator is cheap, easy to keep clean, conv(!uient to use, and should be used during 

 hot weather by every butter and cheese factory patron. The aerator consists of a sim- 

 ple tin pail, with one or two rows of holes around near the outside of the bottom, sus- 

 pended over and above the top of the can, with a cloth straim r over the top, helol in 

 place by the arm in which the pail is placed. The arm in which tiie strainer is held is 

 passed into a wooden standard, which is attached to the can, and held in an upright 

 position by passing it down through a loop on the can to the handle at the outside of 

 the milk-can. The milk is turned into the strainer, through which it passes to the 

 bottom of the pail, and then through the small holes in the bottom in tine streams, but 

 separates into drops by falling a distance of 12 or 15 inches, exposing it all, drop by drop, 

 to the puril'ying inlluences of the atmosi)here. TLis aeration alone w.ll rid tlio milk of 

 its cowy odor, and most of the others before mentioned, and if done in a pure atmos- 

 phere will koej) sweet more than twice as long as that not aerated, but alike in other 



