IMBEDS 161 



kept in Hritam during tliat time. The indigenous cattle of 

 I lolland were Wanted to milk; with this object in view, careful 

 ;nul well-authenticated records of performances at the pail 

 were kept, so that all cows tfivin^ small yields could he 

 eliminated and this was done ruthlessly. Furthermore, the 

 milk was more often than not sold at rates which rose or fell 

 according to its richness in butter-fat. This was necessary 

 because this produce was wanted for cheese and butter-making, 

 and also because it was found that the unimproved breed 

 naturally gave milk of low quality. By carrying on a system of 

 milk- testing for quality while recording the quantities, the 

 breeders of Dutch Cattle, in the course of years, threw out from 

 their breeding stock all parents likely to reproduce bad milkers, 

 either in the sense of giving little or of yielding stuff of low fat 

 percentage. In this way the Province of Friesland and the 

 greater part of the rest of Holland obtained, after many years 

 of good Work, cows that could be relied upon to give great 

 weights of milk of moderately rich quality. More than this 

 cannot be said; for the average quality of the best herds in 

 Holland is not high in butter-fat. 



Now in England no effort was systematically made under 

 supervision, as was the case in Holland, to get rid of bad milkers 

 up to the year 1914; the result is that, whenever it has been 

 tested, the milk varies very much from moderate to poor in 

 quality. In fact, the fluid is often so poor as to contain less than 

 the 3 per cent, of butter-fat which is the limit fixed by Govern- 

 ment as a standard below which milk may not be sold ; or rather, 

 the authorities say that if milk is sold below standard it is, as has 

 been said before, held to be adulterated until the contrary is proved. 

 With all deep-milking breeds, untoward circumstances willoc- 

 casionally bring the quality down to a percentage much below 

 normal For instance, if the average quality of the mixed milk of 

 20 cows is 3-7 per cent., one may reasonably expect that it will 

 nearly always pass the standard ; the exceptions, in other words, 

 will be gp few as to make the chances of a summons for assumed 

 adulteration uncommon. But the unimproved Friesland cows, 

 that is to say, animals that have not been bred through several 

 generations from animals selected as breeding stock because 

 M. " 



