The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-12-22
agricultural.
T. H. HosklNs, M. D., Editor,
Newport, Vermont.
Dairying Questions.


Dairying Questions.
Mr.. Timothy Wheeler of Waterbury
Center, VT, makes the following in.
quiries; Q) Is it true, as has been af-
firmed, that butter made from cows
milk is not an animal secretion, but
vegetable? 1t is said that an expert
chemist can obtain from eight to ten
pounds of butter from one hundred
pounds of Indian meal, and from one
hundred pounds of good hay he can ex-
tract from twelve to thirteen pounds of
butter, while if fed to COW she will
give us only eight pounds. (2) If
these are facts, why not do away with
COWS and employ chemistry for the
manufacture of our butter? Or would
that be more costly way? If the COW
process should prove the cheaper way,
then (3) why is not the right kind of
food for cows for the manufacture of
butter settled by chemistry? The ex-
periences of dairymen differ-hardly
two agree. l know of dairymen who
eXtol bran as q COW food for butter:
then | know of others who condemn it.
declaring it to be not much better than
saw-dust. SO experiences differ, and
nothing in relation to this point is
settled in this way. so let chemistry
settle the matter and unite us all. az
In your opinion, at what temperature
ought water to be for cows to drink in
winter for best results? (5) If, as some
claim, the raising the temperature of
water from ice-cold to a suitable de-
gree (what is it?) increases the flow of
milk twenty-five per cent, is it not de-
sirable, and would it not be profitable,
that some cheap and practical method
should be devised to accomplish this
result?
REPLIES BY AGRICULTURAL Ed
IToR.-O 1t seems to us self-evident
that anything " secreted" by an animal
must be an "animal secretionn Yet it
may not be chemically different from
similar" secretion produced by plant.
Thus the common salt in urine is I'M
questionably identical with the salt often
found very abundantly in the tissues of
seaside plants. But to come closer to
the subject; butter is an extremely
specialized kind of fat. Other fats like
it in color, and not much unlike it in
cOnsistence, are indeed extracted from
parts of plants. But none of these are
identical with the fat of cows milk, nor
do any of them approach it closely in the
peculiar completely of its numerous
constituents, especially in the volatile
substances on which the peculiar odor
and flavor of butter depends. When
these are separated from the fats, even
then these fats themselves have not
been shown to be identical in compost
ton and constitution with any vegetable
oil or fat, so far as we are aware. The
chemistry of fats is very complicated,
and we have not kept up with it, nor
have we access to the latest sources of
information with regard to its progress,
but we think the above statements are
correct. Certainly if any chemist has
extracted genuine butter from meal, or
hay, the authentic record of the fact has
notreached us. There is a good deal of
such stuff going in the papers, given
circulation by ill-informed editors,
which has no foundation in fact.
GU All. # they are facts. That is the
very point, and until that is settled it is
not necessary to 90 further. 1t will be
long time, we think, before cows will
be dispensed with in favor of any
chemical butter substitute. Tallow is
probably more closely allied to butter
than any vegetable fat, yet we all know
how different is its scent and taste. 1t
is the scent and taste, quite as much as
the composition Of its fatty element,
that makes butter butter.
CD Chemistry is far more actively
occupied in unsettling than in settling
things, as yet. 1t is busy in ascertain
ing what we don't know, and have yet
to learn. This must always precede
constructive progress. Chemistry, so
far, has been much more busted in Civ
ing ineligible explanations of known
facts in agriculture than in adding new
facts. No chemist has ever been able
to suggest a better butter-producing
food for cows than good pasture grass.
Farmers have known that long time.
When there is no fresh grass we have
to feed something else, and the fact
that heretofore butter-making has been
pretty closely confined to the grass sea-
son shows that the problem of making
butter as good as grass butter out of
something else than grass, has been a
hard one for the farmers. No matter
how good our hay is, no matter how
many roots and how much grain and
ensilage we may grow and compound
into "rations," June butter is still
June butter; and winter butter, though