CONTENT OF COW'S MILK 9 



reaches its highest point within the first two months of calving, 

 and then gradually diminishes until the cow becomes dry. 



C. Influence of the Weather as regards Moisture and Dryness. 

 In courts of law when a clever advocate is put to finding 

 scientific justification for milk of such poor quality that it 

 infringes the standard, it is not infrequently pleaded that the 

 cause of the impoverishment is due to the climatic conditions 

 which more or less immediately preceded the collection of the 

 peccant sample. Apparently either very dry weather or very 

 wet weather, whichever happens to best fit in with the legal 

 argument, is credited with the power to produce the poor 

 quality milk. 



This may be the case, but the writer is not aware of any 

 reliable evidence in favour of such action, and his own analyses 

 of milk, carried out for over five years, do not bear it out. 



With these different factors affecting the quality of milk 

 it is not surprising that occasionally the milk of individual 

 cows, and still more rarely of individual herds, falls below the 

 legal standard. If the cases in which the feeding has been 

 obviously of poor and unfairly poor quality, and the cases in 

 which the interval between the milkings have been excessive 

 be excluded, the percentage of cows yielding milk below the 

 legal standard is small, and of mixed herds very much smaller 

 still. 



The question of the justice of the legal chemical milk 

 standards is discussed in Chapter XXI. 



STRUCTURE OF UDDER : CELLULAR ELEMENTS 



In addition to its chemical constituents milk contains 

 cellular elements and, nearly invariably, bacteria. The nature 

 of the cellular content is of considerable scientific interest 

 and also practical importance. 



The udder in the cow consists of four quarters, each with 

 a separate teat. While these quarters are bound together by 

 connective tissue into one whole, they are each complete and 

 self-contained with separate secreting glands, lobules, and milk 

 cistern. In a few cows an additional pair of teats is present 

 on the posterior portion of the gland, and in rare instances 

 these are connected to fully developed secreting glands. 



