VOL XLVIII. NO, 2048 NEW YORK. APRIL 27 18S9. price five cents, 
_ $2.00 PER.YEAR. 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the Year 1889, by the Rural New-Yorker In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.] 
THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF AG¬ 
RICULTURE. 
DWIN WIL- 
LITS, whose 
a p pointment 
as Chief As¬ 
sistant to Sec¬ 
retary of Ag- 
riculture 
Rusk was 
recorded in 
the Rural 
two weeks 
ago, was born 
at Otto, Ca‘- 
taraugus 
county, N. Y., in 1830. When he was six years 
old his parents moved to Michigan and in 
that State he has since resided. He graduated 
from the Michigan Uuiversity in 1855, aud at 
once applied himself to the study of law. 
He has always been a marked figure in public 
life, filling various official positions with 
credit. He was elected to the 45th Congress 
and served his district three terms with 
marked ability. 
In 1882, Mr. Willits was elected principal of 
the State Normal School. On the resignation 
of President Abbot, of the Michigan Agricul¬ 
tural College, Mr. AVillits was at once selected 
to preside over that institution. As president 
he has proved himself to be an able organizer 
and a thorough instructor. Perhaps the best 
idea of his success may be gained from the 
following resolution passed by the Michigan 
State Board of Agriculture : 
Resolved , That in accepting the resignation 
of President Edwin Willits, the Board of Ag¬ 
riculture desires to place on record its appre¬ 
ciation of his faithful, intelligent and earnest 
labor in behalf of the Michigan Agricultural 
College. Under his administration there has 
been a continuous, progressive movement in 
college affairs, and while we, from the first, 
have had confidence in his ability to wisely 
manage the diversified interests entrusted to 
his care, wo have been more than gratified 
with the success attending his enthusiastic 
and discreet efforts to broaden the scope of 
the college, and intensify its methods of popu¬ 
larizing industrial education, awakening the 
people of our State to an appreciation of the 
value of scientific attainments as an accom¬ 
paniment of rural life. We recognize his 
ability to fill creditably the position of Assist¬ 
ant Secretary of Agriculture to which he has 
been called, and while we sincerely regret the 
loss to our college occasioned by his resigna¬ 
tion, we can but feel complimented by his 
selection for so important a government po¬ 
sition, and we congratulate the Administra¬ 
tion on the wisdom of its choice. 
In closing the relationship which has con¬ 
tinued so pleasantly and profitably, our hearty 
good wishes will follow our retiring president 
in his new field of labor. Although he may 
follow new aud broader avenues of usefulness, 
aud make a larger acquaintance with the ne 
cessities of agriculture aud means of meeting 
them, he will always be kindly remembered 
by the Agricultural College of Michigan as 
having given an added impetus to the pro¬ 
gressive movement. Chas. W. Garfield, 
Cyrus G. Luce, 
Wm. B. McCreery.” 
We show an excellent likeness of Mr. Wil¬ 
lits at Fig. 97. We like his face. It is sound, 
honest aud manly. The R. N.-Y. gives the 
new Assistant Secretary its very best wishes, 
and expresses the hope that he may bo as suc¬ 
cessful in his new field of labor as he has 
proved himself in past duties aud responsi¬ 
bilities. 
On the editorial page of this issue will be 
found some extracts taken from a recent letter 
from Mr. Willits. May the hopes expressed 
in the letter be fully realized. 
HOW TO ADJUST PROF. F. G. SHORT’S 
SAPONIFYING OIL-TEST OF MILK 
TO THE MILK DIVIDEND. 
No. I. 
In the convention of the Vermont State 
Dairymen’s Association, held about the mid¬ 
dle of January, Mr. F. D. Douglas, said he 
thought testing instruments were deceptive, 
as they only tell the butter content in the 
sample of milk or cream; but do not tell what 
proportion of fat the churn can take out. 
Now, I suppose that is the truth, and the 
worst of it is, it will always remain true. 
In view of it, what shall we do—forswear all 
testing of milk or cream, and let all progress 
revert to chaos and take the injustice of the 
old way as an unavoidable evil, or act on the 
light we have, and get the approximate jus¬ 
tice we may ? Long before Prof. Short’s pro¬ 
cess had been tested enough and perfected to 
justify its claims for public use, every clear¬ 
headed tester of milk for butter fat. knew 
that Prof. Short’s process would no more de¬ 
fine the churn-yield than does the old and 
complicated chemical analysis. The mixture 
of the alkali with the milk causes a complete 
■ separation of the elements held in mechanical 
emulsion, as that result is achieved in the 
economy of the cow, and therefore when the 
fat is abstracted by the admixture of acptic 
and sulphuric acids, a greater per cent of fat is 
obtained than is abstracted by the churn—as 
a rule—though there are very rare exception¬ 
al cows, or cows in exceptional conditions, 
that give cream that yields up in the churn 
' very nearly all the fat that chemical analysis 
shows there is in the milk. 
We are, therefore, driven to the point ■'of 
testing all samples in the very best practi¬ 
cable way, and the excess in per cent, of fat 
shown by the test, over that actually pro¬ 
duced by the churn, will have to be prorated 
among the patrons, according to the weight 
of milk of each. The bulk of the dividend 
will be a very close approximation to exact 
EDWIN WILLITS, 
Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. From a Photograph. Fig. 97. 
justice, and will draw the line sharply be 
tween good and poor butter-cows. The excess 
in test-yields over actual results from the 
churn, will be small in any eveDt, varying 
only as the “Jchurnability ” of cream varies, 
and that variation is as likely to pertain to 
one breed as to another, to one herd as to 
another, to good cows as to poor ones, and it 
also varies trom day to day in the same herd, 
and the same cow even; so in that partic¬ 
ular, there is a factor that yields to no system 
of testing whatever, so tar as we know. We 
are therefore in doubt whether any system 
can ever meet it in any other way than by 
prorating the difference; for the variation is 
made by the cows, and their varying condi¬ 
tion caused by food, drink, breed, (perhaps] 
about that we do not certainly know—and by 
time from farrowing, and by the time they 
have been gestating. Methods of testmg can 
take no cognizance of these facts, but pro¬ 
ceed to separate the elements actually in the 
sample of milk tested, the same as it would 
if that were the only morsel of milk in all the 
universe. Treating a sample of milk the 
same as the cream of the big or co-operative 
churn is treated, so far as to age before 
churning, ripening and either churning and 
weighing the sample, or reducing it to oil 
after churning, does not help the matter; for 
there is no positive evidence about which we 
know anything, that the cream in the co-op¬ 
erative churn yields the same per cent, of 
butter that the test churn does. On the other 
hand, we have evidence conclusive enough, 
that the cream yields its butter in the big 
churn when it fails to do so in the sample 
through churning and melting. Because it 
would not, and never did, uniformly and 
reliably do so—notwithstanding all our hopes, 
and the hopes of others—is the reason why 
Prot. Short s semi-cnemical analysis was and 
is hailed as a boon, and is coming to be more 
and more relied upon. 
So we come back to the point that the per- • 
cent, defined by the test is not and cannot be 
expected to be a strictly true definition of the 
per cent, the ehurn will yield. This comes 
from the fact that the big churn varies its 
yield from the absolute per cent, of fat in the 
milk, from day to day, and from the varia¬ 
tion in the results of churning and melting 
the test samples. There is a “sliding scale” 
to both; and a hit to-day may be a miss to¬ 
morrow; and the miss is as .kely to be a 
minus as a surplus quantity. 
What then do we want when we find the 
big churn is subject to causes over which we 
have no control, and we cannot certainly tell 
whether it will excel or be deficient in normal 
years—to-day or to-morrow? Evidently we 
need to eliminate the other “ sliding scale; 
the one in the testing—if we possibly can. 
This is done, substantially, in Prof. Short’s 
test, because it takes out that proverbial “last 
wrung drop” of fat every time, for the reasou 
that the alkali destroys the natural emulsion 
of the milk, and the after application of a 
mixture of acetic and sulphuric acids separates 
the essential oil from the saponified fat in the 
milk. 
In the next article I will continue the dis¬ 
cussion of this very important subject, about 
which far too little has been said by the dairy 
and agricultural press; being overlooked, I 
suppose, because so few make a study of it, 
though it lies at the basis of true progress in 
dairying, which waits on a correct way to 
equitably divide the actual avails from pooled 
milk at all our great factories. 
WISCONSIN. 
[R. N.-Y.—On page 461 of the Rural for 
188S we gave a full description of Prof. Short’s 
process. It promises to supersede most other 
methods for determining the butter value of 
milk, hence our readers will do well to study it.] 
