74 



Effect of Wild Garlic on Milk. 



extent, and in large dairies different styles of aerating 

 machines are used with good results. Pasteurising milk in 

 open vessels at a temperature of about 155° F. will remove the 

 garlic flavour to a considerable extent, but experiments have 

 shown that when heat alone is used it is necessary to boil 

 the milk for some time to get rid of the odour. Experiments 

 conducted in a Virginia creamery seem to prove that a 

 process combining aeration and pasteurisation is the most 

 successful. This treatment has the advantage of using no 

 chemicals, and the operation is simple. Another method, 

 recently described in a prominent dairy paper, consists in 

 washing the cream with double its bulk of water, in which a 

 little saltpetre has been dissolved, raising the temperature 

 sufficiently to pasteuri^.e the cream, and then immediately 

 passing it through a centrifugal separator. By this process 

 the cream loses much of its weed flavour, but as it has been 

 pasteurised, it must have a ferment or " starter" added to it 

 to insure proper ripening. 



It is difficult to remove all of the garlic flavour from milk, 

 and daiiymen generally agree that to have the milk entirely 

 free from it the cows must be kept away from places where 

 the weed is abundant. In addition, the stables and 

 dairy-room w^here milk is to stand must be kept free from 

 garlic odour, which, like many other odours, is readily 

 absorbed by milk. Garlic is more penetrating and per- 

 sistent (if these terms are applicable in this connection) than 

 most of the vegetable flavours which are given to milk. In 

 many cases these flavours or odours are acquired by the 

 milk after it is drawn from the cow, being taken up fro ne 

 breath and exterior of the body of the cow and the air oi the 

 milking place. Garlic is one of the few exceptions in which 

 the taint is communicated through the structure of the 

 animal itself, but when the milk is first drawn it has this 

 flavour in a very much less degree than is generally appre- 

 ciated. By far the greater part of the trouble follows the 

 milking, and this can be prevented to a considerable extent 

 by care and judicious management of the cows. If cows, 

 pasturing where there is considerable garlic, are shifted to 

 another field where there is none, and where good water is 



