distance, the penetration being Measured in millimeters. The 

 following: details are recommended : 



The rod skould be three mm. in diameter, twenty cm. long, 

 and should weigh ten gms. It should be pointed, but the dis- 

 tance along inclined plane, from poii t to surface of rod, should 

 be no greater than the diameter of the rod. It is easily made by 

 pulling out a piece of glass tubing of the required size and push- 

 ing a small piece of cotton down the inside to the point thus 

 made, filling with mercury until the whole weighs ten grams, 

 and finally closing the open end. The tube through which the 

 rod is to fall should be one meter in length, perfectly straight 

 and of sueh diameter that the rod will fall perpendicularly 

 through it without vibration and with scarcely any friction. At 

 exactly the length ot the rod from the lower end of this tube a 

 millimeter scale should be attached with the scale reading down- 

 ward. The butter prepared in the usual way should stand in a 

 cool room several days, and then the depth of pene nation should 

 be taken at 15^° C, which is a;bout the temperature at which 

 dairy rooms are kept. The hardness of different butters is thus 

 very simply compared, by bringing the tube in a perpendic- 

 ular position over a plane surface of the butter at some dis- 

 tance from the edge of the mass ; fixing the tube in this position, 

 with the lower end lightly resting on the surface ; then lower the 

 ten gram rod into the tube as far as possible with the finger 

 and thumb and let it fall. The penetration can Uien be read off 

 on the scale. The greater the penetration the setter the butter. 

 Except on very soft butters the differences in triplicate determi- 

 nations is seldom over one millimeter. The results in the tables 

 are averages of several determinations. 



INDICATIONS. 



The work in this direction is not as yet extensive enough to 

 justify the drawing of conclusions, but our experiments thus far 

 indicate 



1st. That gluten meal tends to produce a much softer qual- 

 ity of butter than corn meal or cotton seed meal and, other things 

 being equal, tends to lessen the churnability of the butter fat. 



2nd. That with the same cows the hardness of butter de- 

 pends much more upon the character of the food than upon the 

 nutritive ratio. 



8 



