Feeding for Butter.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 281, 3 June 1896, Page 2

Feeding for Butter.

One by one (writes " Thistledown " in the Australasian) the scientific authorities are helping to pat a quietus on the misleading statement that the , proportion of butter in milk cannot be' , increased by feeding. It is strange such a heresy should have obtained currency among those to whom dairy- - men look for instruction. For some years past physicians have known that . fat in food, or in medicinal' preparations, when taken into the stomach, are not digested, but mixed with the digestive fluids in the form of an emulsion, precisely in a similar manner to the mixture of the fat globules in cream, and that this emulsion is absorbed without change by the intestines. The minute globules of fat in the food thus pass directly into the blood, by which they are distributed to the various parts ot the body, and, of course, to the minute glands of which the milk is formed. And when this glandular substance is broken down to form the milk, these same, particles of fat are let loose and escape ■ . into the milk and form the butter. Thus, tracing the fat in the food in which it exists in the form of minute drops or globules in the cells which make up the tissue of plants or grains, we can follow it directly into the milk without change, and thus are able to account for the effects on the milk of the various kinds of food given. This knowledge is of fundamental importance to the butter-maker, and the whole subject is worthy of the most . careful study. It relates to the vary- ", ing ability of the cows to extract the fats from the food, for cows vary very much in this respect, and some cam healthfully dispose of twice or three times as much fat as others, and some may be able to actually convert; 71b of fat in the foods into butter in one day. This is 9. physiological function and ability, and is thus to -be inherited and conveyed by breeding, while it is excited and encouraged — educated, as it may be said, or led out. as the word signifies — by feeding and training. ' It may not be right to think or speak of such cows as phenomenal any more than we would call extraordinary horses phenomena). They, are not so at all. They are instances of the result of human power skilfully exerted over the domestic animals, and everyone of the numerous examples of this successful exercise of man's dominion over creation should be an incentive to exertions in the same way by every intelligent dairyman in the improvement of his herd, and in his pursuit of success and profit in his business.