Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1880-11-05
Agricultural.
The Quality or MuL and FIesh AFFECT.
ed 10y the Food.


The contmrictes of agricultural literature
arr innumcmble. Whatever one recommends,
anuth,r viii DO found to condemn The facts
80 well established that no one is found to
question them are few. Whoever reads them
much will lind hundreds of Inconsistencies and
discr, punci,s in the agricultural journals
They are not confined altogether to the com
paralivcly uneducated doctors disagree. We
find notable instance in late paper We
had supposed that there was no question that
the quality Of milk was affected by the char
actcr of the cows food but we sec it grayely
stated in late agricultural paper that some
foreign professor has been experimenting on
the effect Of different kinds Of food, and finds
that the quality of the milk is not changed by
the character Of the food and the editor
seems to believe it would have been an over
sight IN nature to allow tho young of animals
to be subject to any such huctuation in the
value Of their nutriment as change in its
quality, according to the food of its mother,
would imply. On the contrary, in a recent
article in the Rural New-Y Yorker, Prof E. w.
Stewart says;
The study of foods and their peculiar fla
vors is certainly important to the dairyman.
This study would show him that he may east
ly control the flavor of the milk he produces
through the foods he furnishes to his cows.
1t is true that different COWS give milk of
slightly different favors from the same food,
because one COW selects or appropriates more
of certain qualities than another; but these
individual differences do not materially change
the quality of the butter product.
distinguished French agriculturist, NJ.
Monclar, has lately proposed to give any de-
sired flavor to the flesh of cattle, sheep, pigs,
and poultry, by different combinations of
food, He mentions hares killed in worm
wood field, larks shot after eating cabbage,
and g.s laid by hens that had eaten of dis
cAscd Si!Eworms, as having nGuscating fla
vOr, while ducks fed upon sprigs of juniper
had II delicious flavor. He fed rabbits with
the waste Of anise seed mixed with barley and
bran, and others with food favored with the
csscncu of thyme. In both these cases he
found distinct and agreeable change in the
lltYur, and he comes to the conclusion, from
various experiments that cattle and other an
inUlS may be given such havors of flesh as
the skllliul feeder may desire. This may be
pushing the point to an extreme, but all dairy
mrli are familiar with the fact that milk takes
readily flavor from turnips, lceks onions,
cahmge, etc. These favors are more marked
every food gives its own peculiar flavor 1t
has been found that SO good food as red clo-
yer, when fed alone, gives milk an inferior
flavor to that given by white clover and es-
pocially by mixture of giassos. As each
food has its own peculiar flavor, it Is evident
that II large variety of grasses in "a pasture
will give milk higher flavor than one seeded
with only two, say clover and Timothy MS is
most frequently the case The aromatic herbs
among the grasses cropped by the Swiss COWS
upon the mountains produce highly Favored
milk greatly relished by travellers.
We have used the milk from cows fed on
the rank grass of an Illinois prairie, and it
tastes no more like Vermont milk than our
maple syrup tastes like black, cane molasses
That the quality of milk is modified by the
kind Of food is a fact too well known to be
questioned. That professor should discover
that it il not, and that an editor should be-
lieve it, would be surprising if similar cases
were not constantly occurring
The Frenchman's idea of giving the flesh
of animals any desired flavor, according to
the food upon which they are fed, is worth
considering. That this may be done is no
doubt partly, if not wholly true The idea
suggests some damaging reflections on pork
from hogs reared on a manure pile and fed
with filthy swill