CHAPTER III. 
MILK TESTING. 
51. Development of Milk Testing. 
When one stops to think that cnly twenty-five years ago, 
or less, the oniy means that a cheese-maker had of determin- 
ing the quality of milk was a cream tube, in which the milk was 
set for the cream to rise, and a lactometer that would read good 
milk when both skimmed and watered, he begins to realize what 
great progress has been made in milk testing in this brief time. 
This great change has been brought about by the work of the 
agricultural experiment stations, and this one line of progress 
is paying large dividends on all the money that has been in- 
vested in them. 
As indicated in Chapter I (12) the value of milk for cheese 
making is dependent on its fat content. ‘‘New coins are handled 
with suspicion,’’ and when the new method of paying for milk 
according to the test was first recommended, farmers and dairy- 
men were slow to adopt it. At the present time, probably a 
majority of American Cheddar cheese factories are paying for 
milk in this way. 
52. The Babcock Test. 
The Babcock test for determining the fat content of milk 
was invented by Dr. S. M. Babcock of the Wisconsin Agricul- 
tural Experiment Station, and described in Bulletin No. 24, 
July, 1890; it is now not only in general use in this country, 
but in different countries of Europe, in India, New Zealand 
and Australia. It has literally ‘‘gone around the world.’”* 
The following apparatus is used in the Babcock test: Test 
bottles, pipette, acid measure, and centrifuge. 
*The Babcock Test is described in detail in ‘‘Testing Milk .and Its Pro- 
ducts,” by Professors Farrington and Woll (22d edition, 1914; Mendota 
Book Co., Madison, Wis., publishers). Full directions for making tests of 
milk and other dairy products, and discussions of all phases of the subject 
will be found in the book. 
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