432 Tbaxsactioxs of the American Ixstitute. 



taste to tlie milk. During those months wlien the pastm*es are more 

 or less scorched by the sun, and their grass loses its succulent qnali- 

 ties, unless other fields covered with thrifty clover have been provided 

 for grazing, it is of coui*se necessary to resort to feeding with green 

 corn fodder and the like; this from its nature most closely resem- 

 bling grass. Later, when vegetation of this kind is nipped with 

 frost, sweet roots like the sugar beet or mangel wurtzel are the most 

 available, always excepting that cheapest and best for autumn feed- 

 ing, the pumpkin, which makes the milk rich aud the butter yellow, 

 but the seeds of which should always be removed before feeding, as 

 their peculiar medicinal effect is not required by healthy animals. 

 These truisms, known to every farmer, but too often disregarded in 

 more than one respect, indicate the first principles of successful butter 

 making. 



Good milk is the essential prerequsite of good butter, and to secure 

 this the milk machine must be kept in the best w^orking order. 

 There is a scriptural injunction against muzzling the mouth of the 

 ox that treadeth out the corn. A parity of reasoning will apply the 

 same doctrine to the female of the bovine race, and probably no one is 

 more amply rewarded for being "merciful to his beast" than the 

 dairyman whose pastures are tenanted by well-fed, well-M'atered, well- 

 tended and contented cows. 



Milking, and Milking Machinery. 

 The treatment of milk for dairy purposes may be very properly 

 said to commence with its extraction from the udder ; for this has a 

 direct bearing only second to the causes previously specified, both 

 upon the quantity and the quality of the milk, for if a cow be roughly 

 handled she will withold a portion of the yield. So, too, if in the milk- 

 ing operation the last drops are not fully withdrawn, not only will " the 

 strippings or" richest portion of the milk be wasted, but the quantitj left 

 in the teats will be liable to coagulate and injure the udder ; and, as is 

 w^ell understood, shrink the product of subsequent milkings. Several 

 milk machines have from time to time been invented, but have 

 ])roved objectionable for one or the other of the causes above indi- 

 cated. One of these exhibited at the f^iir of the American Institute 

 two years ago was in its M'ay a curious illustration of how not to do 

 it. It was composed of two corrugated rollers geared together like 

 the rolls of a wringing machine, but placed about a quarter of an inch 

 apart. The cow's teats were to be placed between these rollers, and the 



