NOTES ON BUBAL TOPICS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2471, 24 July 1901, Page 7

NOTES ON BUBAL TOPICS.

I was undei the impression that it i.= now generally lecoenised that the Pops Food quality of milk produced by Affect the cows is more a matter of Quality breed and individuality of Milk.' than a matter of feeding. T

thought it bad been pretty conclusivelj established by experiment* in all purrs of the world that food exerckrs very little immediate, and still less permanent, influence upon the quantity of buttci fat contained in milk, for though the richness of milk produced bj a certain cow iv.ay be appreciably influenced by a "\aii.ition in the food which is given, researches go to show that this variation is very slight, and of but short duration. I was, there fore, rather surprised to see in a Biiti<-h farm paper that a paper had beer read by a certain Frfnch agricultural expert, dealing with the influence of food 1 upon milk, and asuming that there is a marked and important effect produced by certain food-. The paper .-eferred to was vend at an International Congre«» on cattle feeding, hf>!d in Paris last year. It may interest milksuppliers to know \vha< the professor had t« say about the matter. He states that green lucerne is the be&t of the leguminous plants for makins; butter fat. Cabbage? be passes over as if little value m this connection, and condemns the tops of beetroots and mangels as hating a lowering effect upon the quality of milk. According to his ideas well-sa\ed hay, with a mixture o£

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mangels and oil-cake, gives the richest milk ; while damaged hay lowers both the quality and quantity. Parsnips and carrots, he Bays, are butter-makers, and also improve the flavour, while mangels and potatoes increase the flow at the expense of the quality. He lias a high opinion of wheat-bran as a means •of enriching milk, and advocates giving a cow a pint of bran for every pint of milk she produces. Oil-cake is credited with ■exercising a beneficial influence on the milk test, and also upon the texture and firmness of the butter. In order to ascertain the comparative influence of bran and oil- . «ake upon the rate of butter-fat, a test waa made with foiir cows with the following re- j suits: — First, they had an ordinary daily ration of 441b of potatoes, 111b of hay, and 2^lb of oil-cake. With this No. 1 oow gave 3.920z of butter to each gallon of milk, No. 2 4.370z, No. 3 3.150z, No. 4 3.810z. "Hiey were then tried with the above ration \7ith the addition of 4£lb bran, and the result was: — Nor 1 cow, 4.430z" butter to each gallon of milk. No. 2 5.440z, No. 3 no increase, No. 4no increase. Another Tation was then tiied, consisting of 441b potatoes, 111b hay, and 4£lb oil-cake, no bran. No. 1 cow gave no increase, No. 2 ditto, No. 3 4oz to gallon of milk, No. 4 *.50oz. When on pasture alone the cows gave 4.590z, 5.440z, 4.590z, and 4.990z respectively. When bran was added to the pasture only one cow showed any increase in butter-fat. When oil-cake was added to pasture two cows showed an increase, but these were the two that did not respond to the bran. I need not remind my readers that the result of one experiment such as this is not sufficient to prove any theory t« ba right or wrong, but, so far as it goes, it seeir.9 to me to show that, even if it were conclusive, it is not good enough to quote in support of the idea that various foods increase a cow's yield of butter. Though No. 4 .cow increased her butter yield from 3.810z on the first-mentioned diet to 6.020z on pasture and oil-cake, it is not stated how long the effect of the last-mentioned ration continued. If it were temporary, there is nothing to justify the expense of the qll-cake. Moreover, all the figures quoted are very low, and a cow that givea only 4oz of butter to 'a gallon of milk is not worth feeding at all. as it would take 4gat of her milk to produce lib of butter. Three* of the cows gave less than 4oz on the first-named ration of potatoes, hay, and oil-cake. Taking the average of all the figures, the yield is only 4.700z0f butter to the "gallon of milk, which mean's neatly 3£gal to lib of butter. It is not so stated, but it may be that the butter yield means pure butter, without any water or salt, in which case the results would not be quite so bad, though far trom good. Every daily farmer will allow that pasture — that is, summer pasture of fairly good quality, makes the best gilt-edged and full-flavoured butter ; but there is a lot of difference in the quality >f pasture, according to the grasses of which it is composed. Notwithstanding all that may be written and demonstrated, I believe that a cow is born with the power to give richei or poorer milk, as the case may be, and her nature cannot be changed by the food she gets, just as it is natural for the Jersey breed to give richer milk than the Ayrshires. The Jersey and Kerry cow 3in their native countries are usually fed on anything but such rich food as is given to the beef-producing breeds, such as the shorthorns, Herefords, and Aberdeen -Angus, and yet the milk of these breeds is not so rich as that of the little Jersey and Kerry cows. In May la.-.t the Royal Jersey Agricultural and Horticultural Society Jersey held their annual competiButter Tests, tion in butter tests, and the results show how exceptionally rich the Jersey miik i» in butterfats. Fifteen cows competed, their ages varying from Tour to ten years, and the time rince calving from 59 days to 260 days. The cow which gained the gold medal was nine years old, had been in milk 220 days, and gave 321b of milk. From that milk. 2^lb of butter was made, s>o that her milk was co rich that it only required a fraction over 141b of it to make lib of butter. The silver medal cow gave more milk — 45ilb —but as it yielded only 21b 10£oz of butter, the ratio of milk to butter was 17.631b. The bronze medal e»w gftv* ttlb boa of milk, 21b

I 7soz of butter, and her milk ratio was as i low as 13.51. I don't quite see why she was placed third, unless it was because she was a few years younger than the other two, and had been a shorter time in milk. At all events these three cows upheld in a marloed manner the excellent qualities of their breed as butter-producers, and the other 12 cows in the test were not far behind them, and all gained certificates of merit. The factory test of the milk of the winning cow would be 7.01. and I fancy a herd of cows giving a fair yield of milk with a test like that would be better property than shares in a good dredging claim. It may not be known by some novices at dairying that a Babcock test means the amount of pure butter-fat to 1001b of the milk tested. Therefore a 4 per cent, teat means that there is 41b of pure butter fat, not including solids, in every 1001b of the milk, I but it does not mean that in practice we only get lib of marketable butter from 251b of milk, because the addition of water and . salt is sufficient to make lib of butter from ! about 221b of the 4 per cent, teat milk. ' The usual allowance of water is about 10 or 12 per cent. ; if more than 14 per cent, it is excessive, and liable to suspicion. Some good authorities hold that no butter should contain more than 12 per cent, of water; and others .contend that in warm summer weather it is impossible to produce butter having less than 15, or even 16, per cent, of water. It is a well-known fact that the water content of butter depends upon the temperature at which the butter is made. That being the case, it is evident that in farm dairies we cannot make butter of a uniform character all the season, owing to variations of temperature, and, therefore, the better plan is to send the cream to the factories, where all nee •'vy appliances are available for regulating the temperature, and for turning out an article of highclass and uniform grade. The mention of a standard quantity of watet in butter remind? me that A Milk there has recently been much Standard. discussion in Britain anent the fixing of a standard quality for all milk sold in the United Kingdom. I understand that the British Board of Agriculture set up a committee to inquire into tke matter, and to recommend an Imperial standard of quality, so that if , a retailer >f milk is found to ' be selling [ milk of a lowei quality, he can be prosei cuted for adulteration. The committee, after hearing an immense lot of expert and practical jvidenoe, finally decided to recommend a jtandard consisting ot 12 per ; cent, solids, of which not less than 3.25 per cent, must be butter fat. .There is a great outcry against that standard <*9 being too high, and it is argued that i. a man's | cows give much milk of a lower quality, he | may be prosecuted for adulteration, though ! the milk he sells is pure. For example, it t is pointed out that some of the deep milkI ing cows at the Ayr show did not give a tei-'t of 3.25 per cent., and these cows may be taken as being a fair sample of the breed. At all event-, the British Dairy Farmers' Association has petitioned the Board of Agriculture not to adopt the report of the committee in regard to the milk «tandard recommended. The danger of too low a standard is admitted by farmers as well as analysts, and, on the other hand, a farmer is open, to suspicion who sells milk below a high standard, though lie may be quite honest and his milk also. The matter &cems to be one of very great difficulty. AGRICOLA.