Testing Milk on the Farm. 155 



flow of milk was increased by the heavy grain feeding 

 for several months, as well as by the change from grain- 

 feeding in the barn to pasture feed with no grain. 1 As 

 a general rule, the test of the milk will be increased by 

 a few tenths of a per cent, during the first couple of 

 weeks after the cows have been turned out to pasture 

 in the spring. The increase is perhaps due as much to 

 the stimulating influence of out-door life after the con- 

 finement in the stable during the winter and spring, as 

 to the change in the feed of the cows. After a brief 

 period the milk will again change back to its normal fat 

 content. 



177. The increase which has often been observed in 

 the amount of butter produced by a cow, as a result of 

 a change in feed, doubtless as a rule comes from the 

 fact that more, but not richer milk is produced. The 

 quality of milk which a cow produces is as natural to 

 her as is the color of her hair and is not materially 

 changed by any special system of normal feeding. 2 



* For further data on this point, see Cornell (N. Y.) exp. sta., bulle- 

 tins 13, 22, 36 and 49; N. D. exp sta., bull. 16; Kansas exp. sta., report, 

 1888; Hoard's Dairyman, 1896, pp. 924-5, W. Va. exp. sta., b. 109. 



2 On this point numerous discussions have in recent years taken 

 place in the agricultural press of this and foreign countries, and the 

 subject has been under debate at nearly every gathering of farmers 

 where feeding problems have been considered. Many farmers are firm 

 in their belief that butter fat can be "fed into" the milk of a cow, and 

 would take exception to the conclusion drawn in the preceding. The 

 results of careful investigations by our best dairy authorities point con- 

 clusively, however, in the direction stated, and the evidence on this 

 point is overwhelmingly against the opinion that the fat content of the 

 milk can be materially and for any length of time increased by changes 

 in the system of feeding. The most conclusive evidence in this line is 

 perhaps the Danish co-operative cow-feeding experiments, conducted 

 during the nineties with over 2,000 cows in all. The conclusion arrived 

 at by the Copenhagen experiment station, uuder whose supervision the 

 experiments have been conducted, is: that the changes of feed made in 



