New YorkK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 213 
seed meal was fed. From observation of the butters, and from 
the examination of the chemical composition of the butter fats, 
I should grade the quality of the butter as found in these experi- 
ments, as follows: 

First. Second. | Third. Fourth. Fifth. Sixth. 











Yield..... Linseed meal..... Cotton-seed meal.| Corn meal.. | Wheat bran.| Oats.......... HAY so.c ceesis 
Color.:::; COS aici nee ee a Cotton-seed meal.| Corn meal...| Wheat bran. Linseed meal.| Hay......... 
Grain ....| Corn meal .....:.. Cotton-seed meal.| Wheat bran.| Oats......... Linseed meal.| Hay......... 
* Firmness.| Cotton-seed meal. Wheat bran....... Corn meal.. | OBisr.'. aeerle Haynes. cee eme | Linseed me’] 


By firmness, as here used, I mean that quality of hardness 
fitting the butter fortable use. Oats produced the hardest butter, 
but it was somewhat crumbly. Linseed meal gave the softest 
butter, and its oily nature did not recommend it as first-class for 
table use. These results are only given tentatively until further 
trials can establish the true order. 
I do not wish to be understood as saying that any one particu- 
lar food is best adapted to produce the highest quality of butter. 
In fact, the finest quality of butter was produced when several of 
these foods were combined in a ration. 
Of all grain foods tried, gluten meal gave the largest flow of 
milk, but the per cent of fat was exceptionally low. Dry feed, a 
waste product from the manufacture of starch and glucose from 
corn, ranked next to gluten meal. Corn meal followed these for 
producing flow of milk. Linseed meal gave the largest amount of 
_ butter, but the quality was not of the best, being too soft. Oats 
gave the best colored and hardest butter, but somewhat crumbly. 
A combination of foods was the most satisfactory butter ration. 
Then in the feeding trials made with six individual animals we 
find that the character of the food did largely influence both the 
yield of butter and the quality. Or quoting from the last annual 
report to the Station: ‘TI do not mean to be understood as saying 
that difference in food will make a good butter cow from an inferior 
animal, but rather that improper food fed to a good cow will result 
in a lessened quantity and an inferior quality of butter.” 
As the production of butter fat seems to depend upon the rapid 
growth of certain cells in the milk gland and these, as cells, are 
largely nitrogenous, we should expect the character of the food to 
influence, to a greater or less extent, the fat of the milk; such 
