New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 
387 
Professor Arnold,* has received considerable attention, and is worthy 
of careful investigation, as its confirmation would enable the dairy- 
man to control, through the food, the quality and composition of the 
butter produced. There is asserted evidence that such a transfer 
takes place in the well-established fact that certain plants, as onions, 
turnips, etc., when fed to milch cows, impart, in a short time, their 
characteristic odors to the milk. The marked difference not only in 
color but in flavor of butter made during the winter, when the cows 
receive only dry food, and in the summer, when in pasture, has been 
attributed to differences in the fatty portions of the fodder. 
On the other hand, the variations in the composition of butter to be 
ascribed to breed, and to individual peculiarities of the cow, are so 
well defined and so constant in character, whatever the character of 
the food given, as to render a direct transfer of fats highly improbable. 
That the essential oils of plants may to a small extent be transferred 
to the milk without decomposition, need not be here questioned. These 
principles, however, being volatile and somewhat soluble, should be 
more readily assimilated than the insoluble fixed oils such as comprise 
a large proportion of butter fats. Moreover, the proportion of these 
essential oils of the food which finds its way into the milk is very 
small. A peck of onions fed to a cow would scarcely impart so much 
flavor to the milk as would a small piece added directly to it. 
One way of solving this question is by careful examinations of the 
butter and noting the changes in composition which follow radical 
changes in the food. Crude cottonseed oil has some characteristic 
properties by which its presence, when mixed with butter, even in 
small quantities, may be detected. This fact suggested the experi- 
ment of feeding cottonseed meal, which contains a high percentage 
of oil, and which is generally conceded to have a decided influence 
upon the character of the butter, to a cow, and examining the butter 
for the peculiar properties of cottonseed oil. This test was made with 
one of the Station cows, the butter from which had been previously 
and frequently tested in the laboratory. 
The first cottonseed meal was fed April eighteenth, one-half pound 
being given. This quantity was gradually increased until May first, 
when four pounds were fed each day. This amount of meal contained 
as much fat as the remainder of the ration, and would, therefore, be 
expected to contribute an appreciable amount of cottonseed oil to the 
butter, if any direct transfer occurred. 
* Paper read at the meeting of the Society for the Promotion of Agri- 
cultural Science at Montreal. 
