Conditions Affecting Butter-Fat. 451 



part of November. At this time of the year the cows over a 

 great part of Holland are, as a rule, nearing the end of their 

 lactation period, the weather is usually unsettled, the nights 

 cold, and the pasturage scanty. The milk-fat produced under 

 such conditions is frequently so low in volatile acids as to give 

 rise to the supposition that the butter has been mixed with 

 margarine. After the cows are stabled, and in receipt of their 

 usual winter food, the butter-fat quickly re-acquires its normal 

 complement of the characteristic fatty acids of butter. 



These results were confirmed by a Commission appointed in 

 1899, at the instance of the French Minister of Agriculture. 

 Their conclusions are as follows {Bulletin du Ministers de 

 V Agriculture, 1901, p. 327): — 



1 . Certain Dutch butters, during the months of October and November, show a 

 composition sensibly different from that of French butters, and approaching that of 

 butters adulterated with margarine. 



2. This occurs only at one well-defined period of the year, for about 2\ months 

 (September 15th to the end of November). 



3. It would be wrong to generalise this fact, as certain interested persons have a 

 tendency to do, and to extend it to the whole butter produce of the Netherlands ; in 

 this country, indeed, even at this particular period of the year, there are a large 

 number of butters having a normal composition. 



4. The lowering of the content of volatile acids in certain butters is due to the 

 defective conditions under which the cows at grass are living ; at a time when they 

 are subjected to cold and damp they also are receiving insufficient nourishment. 



Taking into consideration the whole of our observations, it is clear that Dutch 

 butters might have, all the year round, a normal composition if the herds were 

 stabled at the first approach of cold, and thus sheltered from inclemencies of the 

 weather, and fed in a more suitable manner. 



5. The defective conditions under which the cows are living at the time when they 

 furnish butters poor in volatile acids, gives us the right to consider these products 

 as " abnormal." 



Indeed, if the chemical expert, confronted with a butter poor in volatile acids, of 

 Dutch origin, and manufactured during the months in question, cannot conscientiously 

 state that this product has been adulterated with margarine, it is, on the other hand, 

 his duty to declare that it is an "abnormal butter." In fact, on comparing it with 

 the butters of our own country, he has the right to affirm that in France this butter is 

 not a marketable product. 



It follows from what has been stated that if the Dutch farmers 

 could be induced to stable their cows at the first approach o 

 winter and provide them with a more plentiful supply of nourish- 

 ment than they are able to obtain from the meadows in the late 

 autumn, their butter would tend to have the same uniformity of 

 character that distinguishes the product of their chief competitors 

 in the English market. 



K K 2 



