Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1885-09-09
How Milk IS SPOILED.

readily takes in vapors and odors from
the air when it is at the same tempera
ture or colder than the air that sur
rounds it, but parts with its own odors
when warmer than the air with which
, it is in contact. When cold air touches
warm milk, the air expands and be-
; comes lighter and rises. AS il expands
its capacity for holding yapors, gases,
or odors is so much increased that 1t
is not only able to hold all the Odors
and moisture it contained before, but
is enabled to take in more, and hence
it is ready to take up, and does take
up, any ordor or vapor which is vola-
tile enough to rise out of the milk.
Thus, cold air, even If it is not quite
as pure as one might desire it for
breathing, does not contaminate warm
milk, but on the contrary, actually
becomes an aid in purifying it. A
pail of freshly drawn milk, so long as
it remains much warmer than the air
in a stable, may stand III the stable
unframed, provided nothing but the
air, or what is in the air, touches it.
Ifa vessel of cold milk is placed in
warm air, the effect will be reversed.
When warm air touches cold milk,
capacity for holding moisture and
odors is so much diminished that it
becomes unable TO retain the load it
was carrying, and is forced to deposit
its burden on the surface fthe milk,
to be absorbed and held in the milk or
its cream in the same way that the
air on hot day unburdens itself on
the surface of u vessel of ice water,
where the dispositions become appar-
ent in the form of due. If pail of
warm milk and one of cold milk are
placed side by side in the same stable,
one may be growing purer and the
other more foul at the same time, so
much has the fact Of temperature to
do with the absorbing power of milk.
Under the law of the diffusion of
gases, aeriform bodies will, to some
extent, force themselves into liquids
like milk or water, when all are at the
same temperature, but that law is
largely controlled by relative tempera-
lures. Does the reader ask how stable |
odors do get into milk, if not absorbed
by the milk after it is drawn? The |
answer is, they get it through the
breath of the COW. Standing in a |
stable filled with foul air COW cam
not avoid taking in at every breath
the odors with which it is loaded.
Upon entering the lungs they are |
forced at once into the circulation.
The blood becomes charged with them
and the milk, which always serves as
q means of unloading the blood of its
impurities as we'll as it's nutriment,
also becomes loaded with the odors
intensified, greatly to the disgust of
those who use the milk. 1t is surpris-
ing to those who have never carefully
noted the facts how soon and how eff
fectually foreign odors, good or bad,
are taken into milk in the air breathed
by milk-giving cows.
A few instances will illustrate. 1t
is not long ago that an account APP
peared in the Journal of milk spoiled
by being saturated with the odor of
onions, from lettering a COW to the
leeward of an onion patch. In the
experience of the writer, twelve cows,
in passing to and from their pasture,
were subjected to the scent of dead
calf lying twenty rods from the lane
through which they travelled. The ex-
posture to the tainted air did not ex-
coed one minute at each passage, and
yet they inhaled infection enough to
make their milk offensive, and to
nearly spoil for cheese making the
milk of eignty-five cows with which
their milk was mixed. When the
cause was discovered, the burial of the
calf terminated the effect. In four
different instances the writer has
known of cheese being materially in
iured in cheese factories from the cows
of one of the daries lnhaling air seem
ted from dead calves lying around the
barn in state of decay. The annual
reports of the dairy associations have
often contained similar cases. Foul
air is one of the readiest modes of con-
terminating milk sooner than bad food.
What is taken into the stomach may
be, and often is to a large extent neu-
traiised by digestion, but infection
taken into the lungs Is ut once, and
without change, forced into circula-
ton. There Is 10 surer way of befoul-
ing milk than by forcing cows to
breathe the confined air of their
stables, saturated with the fumes of
their perspiration and excrement. The |
consequence of breathing such odors
is so plain and certain that it seems
strange that it should be permitted to
the extent it is. The assumption SO
| commonly made. that the milk alb
| serbs the scent after it is drawn is !
doubtless one the prominent causes.
| It is time that delusian was dispelled,
| and that dairymen should appreciate |
the fact that if they are to have pure
| smelling and pure-favored milk when
| their cows are in the barn: they must
| contriye to keep the odors Of the
stable from the nostriis oftheir cows,
and give them pure air to breathe.
Hurrying the milk out of the barn
may be a good thing to do, but it will
not remove the common cause and
| frequent occurrence of stable odors in
| milk,-Live Stock Journal.
Reduced postage and other causes
have increased the correspondence of
the world, Less than fifty years ago