Dilution /Separator 



is concerned, in diluting it with 25 per cent of warm 

 water, this dilution cannot be regarded as a sub- 

 stitute for setting without dilution in ice water, and 

 it has the further disadvantage of requiring increased 

 tank capacity. 



About 1897 the idea that dilution with water is 

 an important aid in gravity -creaming broke out with 

 renewed activity. It was especially recommended by 

 the manufacturers of certain forms of cheap tin cans 

 in which dilution was recommended as an essential 

 part of the process. These cans were called gravity 

 "separators" modified by various high-sounding, 

 qualifying phrases, with the evident intention of con- 

 veying the idea that this process was as efficient as 

 centrifugal separation, and large numbers of the 

 "separators" have been sold, mainly to unsuspecting 

 or ignorant farmers, who have been deluded into the 

 idea that they were securing a contrivance equal in 

 efficiency to a centrifugal separator at a small frac- 

 tion of the cost. The form of many of the cans was 

 patented, but it was soon shown* that so far as the 

 process is concerned, the patents were valueless, and 

 trials at several experiment stations showed that dilu- 

 tion in gravity separators, of whatever form, is no 

 more efficacious than has been shown above. For 

 this reason, and because rival manufacturers have 

 become involved in controversies over their various 

 patents, the "dilution separator boom" is, fortunately, 

 likely to be of short duration. 



Centrifugal separation. The invention, develop- 

 ment and perfection of the centrifugal separator has 



* Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulls. 151 and 171. 



