26 THE COMMON SENSE OF THE MILK QUESTION 



stituents, it did not serve to reduce the amount of 

 fat in the milk, nor, in the case of cows giving poor 

 milk, could the amount of fat in the milk be increased 

 by adding to the amount of fat constituents in their 

 food." The question arises. How, then, are we to 

 account for the fact that a cow's milk may be and 

 often is rich in the very qualities in which its food is 

 poor? It might be suggested that the cows draw 

 upon their body fat in such cases, but Professor 

 Jordan's experiments seem to disprove this, for 

 among the animals observed by him there was no 

 decrease in weight to indicate a withdrawal of the 

 reserve fats of the body into the milk. 



The evidence seems to be overwhelmingly against 

 the popular notion that the feed given cows influences 

 the quality of their milk more than anything else. 

 It is much more easy to influence the quantity of milk 

 by the adjustment of the feed than the quality. If 

 the cow is naturally a "good milker," in the qualita- 

 tive rather than the quantitative sense, her milk will 

 remain of good quality under the most adverse con- 

 ditions as regards feeding and hygiene, only disease 

 or old age serving to make the quality poor." Similar 

 facts have been so frequently observed in connection 

 with nursing women, that it was for a long time 

 believed that the analogy between the human and 

 the bovine mother was so complete that it was use- 

 less to make any effort to improve the quality of 



