72 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



shows the importance of knowing that, in order to select 

 good butter cows and good cheese cows. 



I have, perhaps, said all in regard to specific gravity that I 

 need to. Now I wish to speak of some taints that we find in 

 milk. You know that milk comes to us at regular periods, 

 if we milk as we ought to, and in measured quantities. It is 

 not like any other article of food, especially is it not like any 

 other article of animal food. This matter we can control in 

 all other respects, but milk comes to us, as I have said be- 

 fore, in increased quantities at even periods of time, if we 

 milk our cows as we ought to, and treat our cows as they de- 

 serve to be treated ; and it comes loaded with germs that are 

 capable of destroying it ; it is full of germs that are prepared 

 for its own destruction. Now, these putrefactive germs that 

 we find in milk act just according to the conditions in which 

 'the milk is placed ; we may retard their action, or Ave may 

 accelerate it. Milk also comes to us with what we call a 

 " cowy odor," or " animal odor," as it is sometimes called. 

 This odor, of course, seems to be stronger and more oflfensive 

 in hot weather than in cool, and it is more perceptible in a 

 sick cow's milk than in a well cow's milk. Take a cow that 

 is feverish, and it is terrible, it is awful. It smells bad, tastes 

 bad, and it is the very element in milk that makes it unpal- 

 atable to most people. There are but few people Avho cah 

 relish new milk as it is drawn from the cow. This animal 

 odor is one of the worst things that we have to contend with 

 in our butter and cheese factories. What it is, I have not 

 yet quite fully decided on for myself. I at first supposed it 

 to be a gas, but I had so much gas about me that it would not 

 agree with me at all, and I concluded it was not a gas. It is 

 something else, gentlemen. 



Now, the first thing Ave ought to do Avith milk, if we want 

 to keep it a long time, is to rid it of this animal odor. If we 

 want to make it p'alatable and good, let us get this out. 

 There is a man in New York who has brought out a simple 

 contrivance for doing this. I am sorry he has got it patented. 

 It is simply a tin pail, the bottom of AA^hich is perforated Avith 

 one or two rows of holes. We turn our milk throueh a 

 strainer, fastened over the top, and it comes out through the 

 holes. It starts in streams, but before it gets down more 



