THE DAIRY INDUSTRY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 101, 19 June 1911, Page 3

THE DAIRY INDUSTRY.

o DAIRY COW TESTING IN ENGLAND. In pushing forward this most profitable of all the improvements connected with the dairying industry, the Department of Agriculture in England announces that in order to improve the milking; capacity of the dairy cows of any district, and, in order to facilitate this improvement, it is willing; to provide an expect' whose business it will be to visit the farms of those farmers who are willing to co-operate. The expert employed is to weigh and test the milk of each cow, and, as a result, valuable information would he obtained upon the following points :—-(1) _ The yield of each cow during a milking period, and (2) the quality or richness in fat. it lias been suggested that all cows yielding less than GOO gallons during a milking period should be weeded out at once; but as this might appear to some to bo rather a drastic measure, it is merely a suggestion, and the farmer will ho left to lix his own standard for weeding out. _ A specially important point which it is pointed out is far too often overlooker! or neglected is the influence of a bull bred especially upon milkproducing lines. If it is true that “like begets like,” then it can he easily understood why it is necessary to see that the hulls used are bred from cows whose milking capabilities are undoubted, reliable evidence • ol which the record system would give, provided it be persevered with and become a regular item in the general practice of the breeder. Several prominent herds of excellent dairy cattle have been bred on these lines for many years with the best possible results, and instances are not unknown where the average yield per cow has been increased from GUO to 800 gallons, ami even more, per milking period of ten months. The system of milk records is extensively pursued in Denmark; and in 1910 the progressive breeders o': dairy cows in Scotland systematically tested nearly 10,000 cows throughout the year. Briefly, the essential details are that a representative of the department will visit each farm periodically, but what the actual period will be depends entirely upon the number -or farmers. If twelve, herds could be tested, the expert would then he able to visit each herd once a fortnight, and it would bo necessary for the farmers to undertake to convey him and the apparatus to and from the station, or to the next farm if a railway journey is unnecessary, in addition to providing food and lodging for one night in each fortnight, inis would he absolutely necessary, as tne export would arrive during the afternoon and test the herd, and t.ie operation would he repeated eai ly next morning during the milking, attei which a move would be made to the next farm, thus a complete record of one full day per fortnight would ho obtained, the results would ho duly entered in a book kept by the oxpei t, and a copy of all yields recorded would ho made and left, at the laini and duly signed; this copy wou.d become the property of the farmer. Thus all records- would hear the signature of an, outside authority, a matter of considerable importance when stock are to be sold. CHEESE AS A DIET. The American Department of Agriculture, which recently issued a cookery hook compiled under Government* Allspices, showing how to make use of cheap cuts of meat, is now preparing a supplementary volume on cheese. The new book will defend Welsh rarebit, and will destroy the superstition that it is the producer of, .pightiuarc,, besides .publishing recipes, showing the best way oi preparing the midnight dainty, with and without beer. The Department has been, experimenting with cheese for a year, \oluiiteer. subjects have been, fed on cheese alone.,for days at a time, and one person under the direction of the Department lived on bread and cheese for a year and suffered no ill-effects. Dozens of methods of proparing cheese are being compiled for the new publication, for the Department of Agriculture is convinced that cheese is a splendid food and is easily digestA wonderful respiration calorimeter has been used by the Government to determine the effects of a cheese diet. It is a chamber within a chamber, a room double-walled, heatproof, and big enough to contain a chair, a bed, and a small table enclosed in iniothoi room. So delicate is the calorimetei tliat a person enclosed therein lor purposes of experiment cannot so much as move a linger without an, electrical apparatus registering the resultant expenditure of energy. The only way mem of science have of determining the digestibility of looct is by the minute gradations in temperature produced by the process of assimilation. This is the manner in winch the Agricultural Department experts have reached their conclusions on cheese. The chese is pushed through a small porthole to the man in, the calorimeter, and the experts watch tiie consumption through a glass door. About a pound of cheese a day has been fed to the subjects, on an average, with no bad effects whatever. Mr Wilson, secretary of the Department of Agriculture, in a preliminary report, states: —“It has already been learned by the Department that cheese is digested _ very thoroughly by the average individual, and that it is not a common cause of physiological disturbance, as is often claimed. Such a conclusion is of great importance, since it lias been the American custom hitherto to regard cheese as something to he eaten in small quantities for its agreeable flavour rather than as a material suited to form an integral part of a meal. To round out the work with cheese, tests are now being carried out having for their objects the accumulation of datat regarding its preparation for the table in palatable ways, so that the housewife may have abundant and reliable information.”