CHAP. v. TAINTS AND FLAVOURS OF MILK. 80S 



and gain access to the uiilk in cheese, they exercise a highly prejudicial 

 influence. Such organisms find in the milk a substance precisely 

 fitted to aid them in farther and rapid development ; which accounts 

 for the amazing readiness with which milk becomes tainted, and the 

 quickness with which decomposition goes on when once it has begun. 



We have already adverted to the importance of keeping the bodies of 

 the cows thoroughly clean by currycombing, or by wisping them down 

 with straw ; but this was chiefly in view of the advantage of aiding 

 the functions of the skin a matter of great importance, which cannot 

 be neglected with impunity. But a new view has arisen since these 

 germ investigations have been made ; for it appears that dirty matter 

 adhering to the skin, and lodging between the folds of the udder, 

 &c., and becoming dry, falls into the milk-pail during the process of 

 milking, and by thus introducing the germs into the milk causes 

 decomposition therein. Not only, therefore, should cows be carefully 

 kept " body clean," by currycombing, so that all adhering matter may 

 be taken off them, but the practice so often permitted of allowing the 

 animals to pass through or stand in mud at gates, edges of water ponds, 

 &c., should not be allowed. This mud is almost invariably mixed with 

 ordure, and the liquid exuviae of the animals, and, being allowed to 

 remain for perhaps months, becomes tainted in the highest degree. 

 From this will be seen the importance, therefore, not only of having 

 the interior of the cow-b} 7 res sweet, and the animals themselves and all 

 the vessels thoroughly clean, but also all the " surroundings " of the 

 dairy, roads, ponds, &c. The same remark applies to the courts into 

 which the cows are turned for fresh air, when housed for the winter or 

 when kept on the summer soiling system. The dirty practice of 

 wetting the hands with rnilk in the process of milking should be 

 discouraged. 



The taints and flavours of milk and milk-products, and the ripening 

 of the latter, have been shown by recent investigation to be closely 

 allied phenomena. Professor A. Harker, in writing on the subject in 

 the "Journal of the British Dairy Farmers' Association " (1889), 

 remarks that, though till recently regarded as solely a question of 

 chemistry, it is now known that the action of certain living organisms, 

 chiefly minute plants, precedes and is the cause of the elaboration of 

 most of the delicate, and often fugitive compounds, which together 

 make up the so-called flavour of all dairy products. There is no natural 

 product so delicate, so susceptible to minute deteriorating influences, so 

 readily affected by physical changes in itself or its surroundings, so 

 variable from causes apparently beyond our reach, as the material of 

 the dairy farmer Milk. Of the principal dairy products, cream, con- 

 densed milk, butter and cheese, the two latter are of chief importance 

 in a study of flavours, though it is cheese which presents the greatest 

 difficulty and variation in its maturing or " ripening." In even per- 

 fectly made butter the action of micro-organisms supervenes after a 

 time and prevents its keeping for long, whilst in badly made butter the 

 action of these organisms is favoured almost as if intentionally, and the 

 unfavourable results are more rapid and pronounced. The action of 



