DAIRYING 257 



each $100 worth of wheat that is sold from the soil 

 $34.50 worth of fertility is removed from the farm, but 

 for every $100 worth of butter that is sold, seven cents' 

 worth of fertility only is removed. 



This vast difference between wheat and dairying is ex- 

 plained in this way: a cow is fed a ration, say, of alfalfa 

 and corn. Both the alfalfa hay and the corn have been 

 raised on the farm. When consumed, the cow has assimi- 

 lated approximately ten and one-half per cent, of the 

 fertilizing elements. The remaining eighty-nine and one- 

 half per cent, goes back to the soil in the shape of manure. 

 Of the ten and one-half per cent, of fertilizing elements 

 that is retained by the cow, about three-fourths go to 

 make milk, and one-fourth to the maintenance of the 

 body. 



In the case of butter made in the farm. The milk is 

 separated : its analysis shows that ninety per cent, of the 

 fertilizing elements of the whole milk is found in the skim 

 milk ; hence, cream and butter remove but ten per cent, 

 of the whole amount. But the skim milk is returned to 

 the farm and is fed to pigs and to calves, which utilize a 

 part of these materials for building up the body : the un- 

 used part passes on to fertilize the land. 



Dairying is a fat-making process. It may be said that 

 dairying is a sort of fat-concentration process. That is 

 to say, the resultant product, which is butter fat, is dis- 

 tilled from corn and alfalfa hay (and from all other ma- 

 terials used as food) through the agency of the dairy cow, 

 the cream separator, and the churn by means of which 

 the distilling process is carried on. 



Butter fat, from a chemical standpoint, is a concen- 

 trated form of heat. The heat comes from the sun. in the 

 first place. It is then taken up by growing plants such 

 as enter into feeding rations and made into palatable 



