Analyses of Imported Dairy Produce. 371 



95 samples of margarine were received, Holland being in 

 both years the chief source of origin. 



In December last the attention of the British Government 

 was drawn to the importation into this country of milk from 

 Normandy, with the object of supplying the London market. 

 At the instance of the Board of Agriculture, samples of this 

 milk were taken by the Customs officers at Southampton, and 

 sent to the Laboratory for examination, when the six 

 samples received proved, with one exception, to be genuine 

 and of good quality. All, however, were found to contain a 

 considerable quantity of formalin, a well-known preservative. 



The Principal Chemist has also carried out analyses of 

 butter made in connection with certain feeding experiments 

 in this country and abroad to ascertain whether, and to what 

 extent, the substance, which gives the characteristic reaction 

 for certain vegetable oils, occurs in the butter from the milk 

 of cows fed upon oil cakes. Dr. Werenskiold, Chemist to the 

 Norwegian Government, lately instituted a series of feeding 

 trials at the Agricultural High School at Aas, Norway, with 

 the object of determining whether the cottonseed oil reaction 

 is given by the butter from cows fed upon cottonseed cake. 

 Fifteen samples sent by him to London were examined by 

 Dr. Thorpe, with the result that the butter was found to be 

 affected when cottonseed cake was used. The results of the 

 English experiment, carried out at the South-Eastern Agri.- 

 ■cultural College, Wye, at the request of the Board ot 

 Agriculture, were given in the last number of this Journal 

 (p. 205). They showed, briefly, that in the case of cottonseed 

 oil some portion of the reacting substance passes through 

 the lacteal glands of the cow and appears in the butter, 

 whereas in the case of sesame oil no such transference of the 

 characteristic substance has been so far detected with 

 certainty. 



A series of experiments was made also upon certain butter- 

 colouring matters which contain vegetable oils as their 

 medium. The vegetable oils used were found to be linseed, 

 rapeseed, cottonseed, and sesame, but the amount of oil 

 required to impart the necessary colour was so small as to be 

 only just perceptible in the finished butter, and not likely, 



z 2 



