HOW SCIENCE IS HELPING THE FARMER. 103 



mainly through rain leaching away the soluble plant food. Fig- 

 ures supplied from foreign investigation were used to prove the 

 point. Finally, in 1889 the Cornell University Agricultural Ex- 

 periment Station did some practical work to demonstrate how 

 farmyard manure would deteriorate by leaching and fermenta- 

 tion.* It was shown that one ton of fresh horse manure had a 

 valuation of $2.45, but exposed outdoors for six months its valu- 

 ation was $1.42, a loss of $1.03 per ton, or forty-two per cent. 

 Mixed horse and cow manure, after leaching for six months, 

 showed a loss of 9'2 per cent, a less amount, no doubt, than occurs 

 on the average farm. 



At the present time, while there is a vast loss of plant food to 

 the farms through the improper care of the manure produced 

 thereon, there is at the same time saved to economic use an enor- 

 mous amount of fertility through the careful husbanding of the 

 materials as produced upon the farms of those who are intelli- 

 gent and economical. We must give scientific investigation the 

 credit for thus showing husbandmen how important farm losses 

 may be prevented ; the numerous devices at present used on the 

 farm for conserving manures, such as manure sheds, pits, cellars, 

 etc., are money-saving equipments. 



In a somewhat different direction, yet in a line where the work 

 of the chemist is of equal if not greater importance than in fer- 

 tilizer control, is the inspection of milk. Milk is the most essen- 

 tial article of food for human consumption, for, properly used, it 

 is as nearly a perfect food as is known. But milk is a fluid, and 

 as such is easily adulterated. It consists of from eighty-five to 

 eighty-eight per cent water, and twelve to fifteen per cent solid 

 substance as fat, casein (cheesy matter), albumen, sugar, and ash. 

 On the percentage and purity of solids in milk is its quality 

 mainly dependent. After the selling of milk became a recognized 

 industry, adulteration came more or less to be practiced. The 

 pump was brought into requisition. Flour, chalk, and other in- 

 gredients were used to thicken it. In 1872 Dr. C. F. Chandler, of 

 Columbia College, stated f that, from long-continued investiga- 

 tion, the milk supply of New York and Boston receives on an 

 average one quart of water to every three quarts of pure milk be- 

 fore reaching consumers. He further says, " With the addition of 

 water in the proportion of one to three before delivering to con- 

 sumers, we find milk-growers deprived of a business which would 

 return to them $1,390,000 yearly, at an average first price of fifteen 

 cents per gallon, city consumers, on the other hand, paying more 

 than $3,700,000 annually for water." 



* Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin 13, December, 1889. 

 t Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for 1872, p. 335. 



