602 



BCIEWCU. 



[Vol. IX., No. 229 



tumn the publication of a series of educational 

 monographs under the editorship of the president 

 of the association, Dr. Butler. The papers will 

 treat of various educational topics, historically 

 and critically ; and the most prominent educators, 

 both in this country and in Europe, have prom- 

 ised contributions. It is expected that the first 

 monograph will be from the pen of President 

 Gilman of the Johns Hopkins university. The 

 arguments in favor of industrial education and 

 statements as to its proper organization and devel- 

 opment will occupy a prominent place in the 

 series, but not at all to the exclusion of other top- 

 ics. We have heard both of these announcements 

 with much pleasure, and particularly the latter, 

 for it means that the teachers of the country will 

 be able to obtain the opinions of responsible edu- 

 cators on current questions readily and at small 

 cost. It is understood that this educational series 

 will closely resemble in form and style the ' His- 

 torical studies' issued from the Johns Hopkins 

 university, under Dr. H. B. Adams's editorship. 



An UNEXPECTEDLY rapid growth in the numbers 

 of students registering in the Cornell university 

 for the Sibley college courses, in the past two 

 years, and since their establishment on their pres- 

 ent basis, has already crowded that institution to 

 its utmost capacity in many directions, the num- 

 ber in the college having already approached, 

 within twenty-five, that considered the maximum 

 which can be accommodated in the existing build- 

 ings. A new building now in progress, under 

 contracts made by the Hon. Hiram Sibley, and 

 which will be presented to the university, will, 

 however, increase the total space available next 

 year by fifty per cent, and will bring the total 

 number, as a maximum, when all classes are 

 filled on the new basis, up to three hundred. 



DISTILLERY-MILK REPORT.' — IIL 

 In response to our circular, a number of letters 

 of interest have been received, which we reproduce 

 below : — 



[Prof. H. P. Armsby, agricultural experiment-station, Madi- 

 son, Wis.] 



I do not think that there is any good evidence 



of any direct injurious effect of the swill upon the 



milk if used in a reasonably fresh state, and as a 



supplementary food ; that is, as part of a properly 



compounded ration. Used too exclusively and in 



1 Continued from p. 581. 



too large quantities, it is liable to produce disease 

 in the cows, and thus to injure the milk. The 

 great danger connected with the use of distillery 

 swill, however, arises from the fact that it fur- 

 nishes a most favorable medium for the growth of 

 all sorts of micro-organisms. Unless the greatest 

 care and cleanliness are observed about the stable, 

 portions of the swill are almost certain to accumu- 

 late in out-of-the-way places, and serve as breed- 

 ing-places of these organisms, whose spores con- 

 taminate the air of the stable, and almost neces- 

 sarily infect the milk. While, therefore, I believe 

 that milk of good quality, both as to composition 

 and healthfulness, may be produced when distil- 

 lery swill is fed, I question whether such will be 

 its quality in the majority of cases : at least, 

 there is always danger that it will not ; and as re- 

 gards that portion of the milk-supply of cities 

 drawn from the small dairies in the outskirts and 

 in the neighborhood of distilleries, which are often 

 in the hands of ignorant and unscrupulous men, 

 the danger is a very grave one. Two valuable 

 papers in the Milch Zeitimg for 1886 (Nos. 45 and 

 46) discuss the healthfulness of distillery swill 

 quite fully : the first of them, by Professor Kirch- 

 ner of Halle, takes substantially the ground that 

 I have indicated above ; the second, by a practical 

 farmer, is more favorable to its use. These are all 

 the references I have now at hand. 



[E. L. Sttjbtevant, M.D., New York agricultural experiment- 

 station, Geneva, N.Y.] 



In response to your circular request of May 12, 

 1887, I would say that we have had no experience 

 at the New York agricultural experiment-station 

 with the feeding of distillery waste or distillery 

 swill. In 1884, however, we bad a very carefully 

 planned and executed experiment upon the feed- 

 ing of brewers' grains in an acid and putrefactive 

 condition. The conclusions derived, while against 

 injudicious feeding, were in no sense detrimental 

 as regards the taste, flavor, appearance, keeping- 

 quality, or composition of the milk, nor as be- 

 tween the hay-fed or the brewers'-grains-fed milk, 

 nor as between the milk from the experimental 

 cows and that yielded by the remaining cows of 

 the herd, all of which is fully reported in our 

 ' Third annual report,' pp. 49-59. 



A further general experience with experimental 

 feeding leads me to the belief that oftentimes the 

 sanitary condition of the cattle under objection- 

 able feeding has more to do with unhealthfulness 

 in the milk-product than the actual food used. 

 In support of this latter view, I would say that in 

 1869 I visited the dairy herds in the vicinity of 

 Glasgow, Scotland. I found the prevalent custom 

 among the farmers was to haul distillery swill 

 daily to their farms, and to feed it to the milch- 



