848 
The “ Churn Test ” and the 
it can be called) from a “ show-yard ” point of view — that the actual 
butter produced can be exhibited, and this appeals to the senses in 
a way that the intricacies of chemical analysis and figures do not. 
On the other hand there are, it seems to me, disadvantages which 
do not appear in the case of the chemical test. 
Could one be sure that the butter exhibited as the yield of a cow 
by the churn test was all that could be obtained by the best 
separation and by the most skilful management, or could one be 
sure that it was all butter with no undue excess of water, of curd, 
&c., and with no unevenness in these respects between competing 
samples, then the churn test would need little more than the exer- 
cise of care in seeing that none of the material was lost during 
manufacture. 
But, as is recognised by the fact that we have our “ competitions 
of separators,” our “ contests of churns,” and our “ butter-making 
competitions,” it must be apparent that quite a number of elements 
are introduced, all or any of which must exercise a disturbing 
influence, small though it may be, on the results. 
And it comes about, therefore, that the butter produced is not 
the absolute quantity which the milk of a competing cow can pro- 
duce, but it is that which is yielded by the working of a particular 
separator, by the use of a particular churn, and by the method of 
procedure adopted by a particular operator. 
Everyone knows that one separator does not work equally as 
well as another, and that even the same separator will remove 
different amounts of fat at one time to another, according to the 
temperature of the milk, the speed at which and the way in which 
the separator is worked ; also that the mere weight of butter pro- 
duced will be largely affected by the perfection or otherwise of the 
removal from it of the butter-milk, or by the more or less skill with 
which water has been incorporated with it. 
Given precisely the same kind and the same amount of cream, 
the same implements, and the same conditions, two persons, even if 
equally skilled, will not produce the same weight of butter — else 
why do we have our butter-making competitions ? Nor, again, 
would the same person twice following produce exactly the same 
weight of butter. 
The personal equation is bound to come in, whether it lie in the 
machine or in the operator ; and the same operator will not turn 
the separator or churn equally well after making, say, half a dozen 
lots of butter, as he did at the beginning. 
Yet again, the churn test does not provide for what many ex- 
perienced butter- makers hold to be essential to the production of 
the largest weight and best quality of butter — viz., the proper 
“ souring ” of the cream. 
On the general ground of adaptability there are considerable 
risks, which make the test a matter of no small anxiety to those 
engaged in carrying it out. Not only must care be taken to keep 
the different lots of milk and cream separate, and to avoid any mixing 
up of them — a not altogether easy matter when many cows are 
