AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 79 



FURTHER REMARKS ON THE BABCOCK CREAM TEST. 



J. M. BARTLETT. 



Since Bulletin No., 3 was issued, many inquiries from parties 

 interested in creameries have been received, and while a few cream- 

 eries have already obtained and are successfully using the Babcock 

 test, there still seems to be a grave doubt in the minds of some as to 

 the practicability of applying a test that gives the value of the cream 

 in butter fat instead of in butter. Again, when the cream is 

 bought by the inch, measured in the cans as it stands on the milk, 

 and then is sampled for the test after its volume has been increased 

 by a small amount of skimmed milk drawn off in the skimming, 

 the per cent, of fat obtained is too small. In regard to the first 

 mentioned difficulty, it is. unnecessary to consider the amount of 

 butter the cream will make ; nevertheless, if some insist on 

 using the butter valuation, they will not come far from the truth 

 if they consider that butter is 85 per cent, fat, or that 85 pounds 

 of fat will make one hundred pounds of butter. 



Cream for butter making is only valuable for the amount of 

 butter fat it contains, and there seems to be no good reason why 

 cream that contains 30 per cent, fat should not make twice as 

 much butter as that containing 15 per cent, and why the one is 

 not worth twice as much per inch as the other. We therefore 

 claim that the only true basis for valuation is the butter fat 

 content. 



Cream from the milk of different cows or even herds, raised by 

 the cold deep setting process, often varies five or six per cent, in 

 fat under the most favorable conditions. If, then, a creamery 

 buys cream at 15 cents an inch and Mr. A's cream contains 20 

 per cent, butter fat and Mr. B's 25 per cent., then A receives 75 

 cents for the same butter fat for which B receives but 60 cents. 



It certainly seems to be more just and business like to pay a 

 fixed price per unit for butter fat of known value, than to pay 

 uniform rates per unit for cream of unknown value. Objections 

 to the fat valuations have also been made on the ground that some 

 cream churns with difficulty, especially that from cows advanced 

 in lactation. This would be a valid objection providing each lot 

 of cream was churned by itself, but it has been pretty well proved 

 by experiment that when cream of poor churning qualities is 

 ripened and churned with good cream, the separation of butter 

 is just as complete, and no more fat is left in the butter 

 milk, than when all good cream is churned. 



