News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-01-05
The oit.restfng Of MIX.
By the Agent Of the Wisconsin State Dairymen's
Association.

Association.
Ed. Hoard's Dairyn,an:: =
1t is known 10 many OF the deeply
interested dairymen and manufacture
ers of dairy products in this State,
and by the representatives of the dali
nv interests IN other States, who are
looking with anxious solicitude for re-
suits, that the Legislature of Wiscon-
sin enlarged the regular appropriation
to the Wisconsin Dairymen's Associa-
ton, so as to give sum deemed suf-
ficient to do something definite, II not
large, in the way of subjecting milk
to the oil test, with a view to show,
pointedly. the vast difference there IS
in the quality Of that taken to COOP
erative factories and sold for domes-
tic uses, and now paid for according
to the weight or bulk, instead of
according to true value.
To put the work in motion. the tx
pcu,ive Board of the State Dairymen's
Association met in Fort Atkinson the
last of April and outlined some def
mite work. that was largely formulat-
ed nv Hiram Smith and W. d. Hoard
The President, Hon. n. c. Adams,
the Secretary. D. W. Curtis, and the
Treasurer, II. X. Loomis. we're made
a subcommittee to employ suitable
person to superintend the work and
provide himself with the needed in
strumentalities. The subcommittee
chose the undersigned, and gave me
pretty nearly blank card to do the
best knew how, to solve some of the
problems that are vital to the dairy
interests of the State, and still keep
within the bounds of the sum set apart
for the pu. pose this year, $500.
Up to this time, we supposed, and
all oil testers we had heard of, as
sumed and taught that the oil that
rose on the surface of the serum, was
either the pure fat, or that what mois-
ture there was in it was of uniform
per cent, in all the samples as near
" so as in packed butter, and so &C
cording to the Chart and Rule. rep
resented a certain per cent. OF the
butter in 100 pounds of the milk they
were taken from. But we found, after
we had obtained oil enough so that
shrinkage was perceptihle and meas
urable, that the assumption was false,
that the oil of the same cow or herd
seemed disposed to decentralization,
more some days than others, and took
up water or whey in some cases so
that four pound COW seemed to have
turned into q six pound within day;
that different cows and different herds
absorbed when first treated differing
quantities of water in the oil, as we
soon proved so plainly that it needed
no confirmation from the chemist. In
system that is half guess-work and
produces in the tube. as rule, not
more than l5-100ths of an inch of oil,
vertically, a varying per cent. OF wa
ter in the oil is not detected if passed
quickly. But we had two inches, YER
tically, of butter oil from Jersey COWS,
and we have seen it expanded to three
inches by the water in it. when the oil
gave no sign to the eye that there was
a drop Of water in il. Of course such
a condition, if it could not be reliably
controlled, invalidated the oil test the
world over, not only for testing milk,
hut cream as well, for we had more
butter fat in the measuring tube, and
so, of course, less water, than spec
linen of gathered cream makes and
the oil and water will emulsify in the
one case as much as in the other; as
much and as quickly with the Gil of
cream, as with the oil of milk, for the
ele .nents are the same. Consequent
ly the reliable oil-testing of gathered
cream, as it is largely practiced, is on
trial as we'll as milk. They will fall
or stand together. Whether the wa
ter would depart SO as to leave the oil
of uniform moisture, was supposedly
true, if sufficient time and right con-
diiions were given. But that the
water was not gone, so that the al
legged oil was correctly measurable
when it was first melted was demon
strated beyond all sensible csvil, and
it would change in the measuring
tubes, in length, in five minutes, some
times enough to show that measuring
oil at once was farce. Still, the
printed directions Of somG OF the
manufacturers of oil-test churns say,
and the p actice Of their operators is,
| to measure the oil when first obtained.
We learned beyond candid doubt
that the water and oil would emulsify,
with a varying per cent. of each.
Would the water sink out of the mix
ture so as TO leave the oil of diff rent
herds, and the same herds on differ
ent days, uniform in moisture or, as
uniform as is the moisture in well
manufactured butter from the same
COW or herd? On that point hangs
the comparative value, or the worth
lessness of the whole oil testing sys-
TEN, of either milk or cream, no mat
ter what the size of the sample or the
form of the charn vessel used.
The definite facts, out of many made
that the chemist did not verify because
they were certain without such verifi-
cation, are here given in regard to
four samples. They are in point, as
proving the correctness of the state
ment, that the water is absorbed by
the oil in the process of reduction, at
different per cent. in different sam
pies. The first measurement was
) made in 80 minutes after the separa-
ton was apparently complete. The
measurement is in tenth Of inches and
fractions thereof