December, 1910,] 



517 



■Live Stock. 



bourne animal is Oolonth IV.'s Johanna, 

 owned by Mr. Gillet, of Wisconsin. Her 

 record is as follows : — 



Butter record— seven days, 35'22 lbs. 

 Butter record — Thirty days, lSS'ol lbs. 

 Butter record— One year, 1,248 lbs. 

 Milk record— Thirty days, 2,677*5 lbs. 



Mr. Gillet was offered for this cow and 

 her male calf the sum of £3,000, but the 

 offer was refused. 



The cow that previouly held the 

 highest one day's milk record was DeKol 



Creamelle, and she produced in one day 

 just 119 pounds of milk, but her butter 

 record for seven days was only twenty- 

 eight pounds. She was owned by D. W. 

 Field, of Montella, Mass. 



DeKol Queen La Polka II. is the dam 

 of a male calf that is four weeks old, 

 and a reporter heard Mr. Sisson offered 

 £500 for the youngster, but the offer 

 was declined. Although he did not so 

 state at the time, it is doubtful if any 

 sum under £1,000 would tempt him to 

 part with this promising youugster. 



SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE, 



UNSEEN AGRICULTURISTS. 



(From the Capricornian, Sept. 24, 1910.) 



Among: the world's workers whose 

 potentialities are only beginning to be 

 understood by men are bacteria. It is 

 only about a couple of centuries ago 

 that their existence was discovered, and 

 about fifty years since their operations 

 and influences began to be studied and 

 understood. They are invisible beings, 

 so minute that they can only be studied 

 in colonies or massss. Bacteriologists tell 

 us there may be a hundred million in a 

 single drop of milk. Whether they are 

 animals or vegetables has not been dis- 

 tinctly determined. One class of them 

 lives on organised matter and another 

 class on simple mineral elements. They 

 are simple in shape— one kind being plain 

 spheres ; another in the form of a rod ; 

 and a third in spiral form. Some of 

 them are capable of active motion ; 

 others are stationary. Motion is obtain- 

 ed by means of delicate hairs or flagella. 

 The method of multiplication is the 

 simplest conceivable, and is effected by 

 the animated atom breaking in two. 

 Under favourable circumstances of tem- 

 perature and food it has been considered 

 they may elongate and divide every half 

 hour. At this rate it is easily proved 

 that a single bacterium in twenty-four 

 hours would have about seventeen 

 million descendants. Minute as they 

 are if they continued to increase at that 

 rate there would soon be no room in the 

 world for anything else bub bacteria. 

 Their multiplication, however, is con- 

 tinually being checked by lack of food, 

 want of moisture, unfavourable tem- 

 perature, and other causes. Besides 

 reproduction by division they also in- 

 crease by spores. A group of individuals 

 form a spherical body with a central 

 atom. Presently it breaks out of the 

 sphere, the atoms are dissipated, and 



the remaining spore is capable of be- 

 coming a new bacterium with power of 

 multiplication. It is covered with a 

 hard shell, and has the power of with- 

 standing great heat, frost, and starva- 

 tion which would kill ordiuary in- 

 dividuals. These in milk may be killed 

 by boiling, but spores cannot be killed 

 by that means. 



Within the last score of years con- 

 siderable information about bacteria has 

 been obtained by their presence in cows' 

 milk. It is now recognised that it is a 

 favourable medium for the existence of 

 numerous varieties of them, and that by 

 their presence in it they change its 

 character and impart different flavours 

 to it. These unseen dairy workers 

 form a profitable and interesting study. 

 Bacteria have other spheres of action, 

 and among the most important of these 

 is the earth — the combined elements of 

 which the world is formed. In it they 

 cannot be so clearly and easily studied 

 as in milk, but their operations and in- 

 fluences in the soil have come to be 

 regarded with intense interest. Of the 

 four elements which are considered 

 necessary to the sustenance of plants of 

 all kinds, uitrogen is considered one of 

 the most essential. As it goes to the 

 composition of plants it is conveyed to 

 the soil by their death and dissolution. 

 The fertility of virgin soil is due to the 

 accumulation, perhaps for ages, of the 

 remains of successive generations of 

 plants. It is not an iner t mass of matter, 

 but is an immense laboratory iu which 

 millions of unseen agriculturists are pre- 

 paring the elements for future crops, 

 Where conditions are favourable it is 

 estimated there are one hundred and 

 fifty millions of bacteria iu an ounce 

 of surface soil. Some of them cause 

 ferments and release carbonic acid to 

 the air ; others bring about the decom- 

 position of nitrogenous organic matter 

 with the ultimate production of nitrates, 



