146 BRITISH DAIRYING. 



fresh, you are master of the situation and can do what you will 

 with them. To a cream-trade a separator is a vital necessity, 

 and it is equally so, no doubt, to a first-rate butter dairy. 



Preserving Milk. 



The milk trade would be simple and easy, if not altogether 

 pleasant, if milk were not such a perishable thing. But now a 

 new and perhaps important method of preserving milk is 

 announced. This method is said to completely kill the bac- 

 teria which exist in all milk, and are the cause of fermentive 

 and putrefactive changes. Completely destroy these organisms 

 and the germs by which they multiply, and milk will keep an 

 indefinite period if the air is excluded from it; the object of 

 excluding the air is to prevent the introduction of microbes, and 

 to keep the milk in a sterilised condition. 



The method is to heat the milk repeatedly, first up to 160 

 Fahr., and finally to 212, with intervals between the heatings; 

 in these intervals the milk cools down, and the germs of the 

 bacteria develop into a state which admits of their complete 

 and final destruction, at the higher temperature named. The 

 method involves trouble and expense, and the milk has to be 

 put into air-tight vessels. Milk treated in this way is said to 

 remain unchanged for months, and to yield up its cream like 

 fresh milk to be fresh milk to all intents and purposes when 

 the vessels containing it are opened. 



The process has been patented by its inventor, a Norwegian, 

 and a company is understood to have been formed with the 

 object of sending milk to this country. The feasibility of all 

 this may be admitted, but the profit is doubtful. The costli- 

 ness of the process, the weight and bulk of the milk, and so on, 

 seem to preclude all but a microscopical profit, if even that. 

 A gallon of milk weighs 10 Ibs. 4 ozs., and is worth 6d. to 8d. 

 wholesale in London : the freight will probably be too great, 

 and the empty cans can hardly be returned free. It seems to 

 me that we have not much need to fear a deluge of Norwegian 

 milk. 



