The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1912-07-22
CAUSES SOFT BUTTER.
How Disease May Be Detected-Butter
May Be Soft When Cow Is Healthy.

An editor of an agricultural Journal
published in the middle West was asked
by subscriber in West Virginia why
his fine Jersey COW produced oily, soft
butter. writes c. d. Smead, the expert
veterinary, in the New York Tribune
Farmer The editor answered him that
it was by reason of his not properly car
ing for the milk and cream or ehurning
at too high temperature. The reply
came back: II am an expert butter
maker and have large experience in car
ing for milk; the trouble ia in the COW. !"
Several letters passed between them, and
at last the whole correspondence was
sent to me, with request that give
my opinion. The question interests all
COW owners. | am therefore going to
give digest of my answer for the
benefit of interested Tribune Farmer
readers.
While it is true that oily and soft
butter is in most cases due 10 either the
food of the COW or the handling of the
milk OF cream at the time of churning,
there are frequent instances where eows
in perfect health will produce milk
containing butter fat which is soft
independent of tine class of food the
COW may be eating. Different cows of
the same breed, fresh at the same time
and fed on the same food, will produce
milk OF a wide difference in solids. One
COW may produce milk with only 10
per cent. of solids, while another COW
of the same breed and eating the same
food will produce milk containing IA
per cent. of solids This every dairy
man knows, and the chemist generally
finds that the ratio of sugar, ash and
casein is in unison with the butt n fats
in the milk. While sugar is sugar and
casein is practically casen, the fats in
milk that go to make butter fat fire.
quently vary in their proportions; as
the chemist finds butter fat in milk,
422 per cent. of it is oil toiein, he calls
it, 80 per cent. of il is stearin and
palmtin, and nearly per cent. is made
up of four other substances of no i'm
portanee in the discussion of what makes
the butter soft or hard
II is the individual nature of some
cows to produce milk containing great
er amount of the oil Tor oleinl than 42.2
per cent, and il is the individual nature
of some cows to produce greater
amount of stearin than 30 per cent.
to produce As per cent of olein, with
correspondingly less amount of stearin,
that cows butter will of necessity be
soft, and if it is cows individual ma
ture to produce in her butter fat 65
per cent. of stearin and only 80 or 40
per cent. of olein, that COW will pro-
duce very hard butter. While the feed.
ing of cornmeal to the COW producing
an excess per cent. of olein might cause
her to produce a harder butter than ii
fed some other class of food. il would
still be unduly soft in spite of the corn
meal. In case where the cows nature
il to produce hard butter, it might
be made softer by feeding largely on
buckwheat middlings or linseed oil meal,
but it would be solid butter all the
same
Hence my answer is, the butter max
er in this case was right in standing
by his theory that the very soft butter
was due to the cow II this COW had
always produced soft butter, it is safe !
to saw there is no disease present which |
has any influence on the butter; but il |
this COW up to certain time had pro-
duced reasonably hard butter, and |
then she began producing a butter that |
was soft, it would furnish us one of |
the evidences that the COW had dis
eased udder, and that disease, / feel |
quite sure, would be found upon sdis-
section, to be military tubereulous |
disease. | have dissected the udders of |
cows, and found little, minute pus cells
the pus from which could not help go
ing into the milk with the butter gob-
ules. The safe way, when a COW is
not manifesting perfect health, and is
producing very soft butter when fed /
a class of food not conducive to soft |
butter, is to consider her as suspicious,
and have her examined by competent 1
or, better still. have her
milk examined by special bacteriolog-
ist. Thus You note. reader, that | |
make a distinction between the COW
that has from the first produced a soft |
butter and one that has once produced
a reasonably hard butter and changes
to the production of soft butter. The
first is normal; the second needs look
ing after.
His Masters Voice.