QUALITY IN MILK.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2241, 4 May 1881, Page 3

QUALITY IN MILK.

More attention is being given to quelity of milk by dairymen than was done a fow yean ago. It is a new topic, comparatively, but one which may be profitably investigated. A correspondent of our Albury contemporary not long ago related the following instances of variations in riohnesß in milk in the same animals that are a little remarkable, and will serve a good purpoEo in stimulating inquiry and observation, with a view to obtaining more information in this behalf:—" A neighbor has a grade Jersey cow. In June her milk was exceedingly rich, testing by the cream gauge upwards of 24 per cent. ; the middle of October it tested only IS per cent. The general observation of dairymon is that quality increases with the lengthening of the period of milking. This cow was in perfect health throughout the season, and her fold was unchanged. What is the cause of this exceptional action ? No cause has been discovered, unless it be this: In June sho was fat ; in October she was poor in flesh, from excessive milk production. The theory based on this is that in June she started with an accumulated store of material which went to add quantity and quality to the milk she naturally would have produced from her food. But that store being exhausted, the quantity and quality were both necessarily reduoed. A oase of like bearing occurred in Chenango county a few years ago. Early one spring one of the patrons of a cheese factory was found to be furnishing a very poor quality of milk. He had furnished a good quality the previous season from the same h >rd of cows. He was suspected of skimming or watering. The lactometor and cream gauge seemed to assure his guilt. A committee was appointed, who proceeded to milk his cows and test the milk without a possible chanoe of adulteration. The innocence of the patron was established. But what was tho cause of this change of quality in % whole herd ? The committee reported that no causo was discovered, excepting that the hay upon whioh they had been fed during the previous winter was of poor quality, and consequently the cows were exceedingly poor in Uesb. These two cases are not olaimed to be sufficient to establish a principle, yet they lead to questioning some of the commonly received views. It is a oommon view that a cow which produces a large quantity of milk necessarily produces a poor quality. Has not this view obtained from a failure to observe the conditions of milking stock ? Is there anv relation between quantity and quality that necessarily they are found in inverse ratio to each other ? The quality may be poor bocause the production of a large quantity keeps tho animal in a reduced condition. But every dairyman has discovered that frequently his richest milkers have been his largest milkers, and that only as they were reduced i-.i flesh have the quality and quantity dike failed. Some cows produce suoh large quantities as always to be, whilo in milk, poor in fleob, but this doos not militate against the following conclusion : Cows of Lhe same breed, kept in equal conditions, quality to quantity, will more frequently be found in direct than in inverse ratio to oaoh other.