MILK-GIVING COWS
There are a number of animals from which men get milk, but chief of all these is the cow. Those are breeds of cows which are kept only for milk-giving and which have been brought to yield so much and such rich milk as to make them of great value. In all history we read of the milkmaid, the girl whose duty it is to milk the cows, one of the chief duties on a farm. Nowadays we do not hear so much about the milkmaid. She has for the most part gone out of business.
No doubt, many of my young friends have seen how milking is done, the cow with its full udders, the white stream of milk which flows from the teats when pressed, and the large quantity of this rich fluid which some cows will give. Perhaps some of you may have tried the art yourselves, but it is an art that needs to be learned, and many cows will not yield their milk to awkward fingers. Some of them, indeed, when they do not like the milker, will kick over the full bucket and now and then the milker with it.
In some way the cow turns part of the grass she eats into this rich fluid, so useful to mankind, not only as a drink, but for the butter and cheese it yields. Nature provides milk to all animals of the class known as mammals as food for their young, but by long usage the cow has been brought to give milk at all times and thus helps to feed her keepers as well as her calves.
I hardly need tell you that milk is a white fluid in which float small globes of fat. This fat is the butter of which we make so much use. If the milk is let stand, the butter floats to the top and is skimmed off in a rich fluid we call cream. By various modes of churning the butter is got out of the cream, leaving a thin liquid behind called buttermilk.
Butter is not the only thing got from milk. Cheese is another product of much use. It is made from the solid parts of the milk. When an acid, or a substance called rennet, which is obtained from the calf's stomach, is put into the milk, the solids come together in a soft, white jelly, leaving a greenish, watery liquid called whey. It is from this jelly, or curd, that cheese is made by pressing out the whey and leaving a hard, solid mass. There are many ways of making cheese and many different kinds of cheese, often so unlike that we can scarcely think they came from the same source.
Back to the Pasture After the Milking
Now let me say something about the various breeds of milk-giving or dairy cows. They differ very much. Some give a great deal of milk; some much less. There are cows that have given as much as twenty-four quarts of milk a day. Think of six gallons from one cow in one day, enough to fill a vessel of large size! Others may give only ten quarts or even less.
But the cow that gives the most milk does not always give the best, for there is great difference in the richness of milk. Thus the best butter makers may not be those that fill the fullest pail. The quantity of milk depends on the food eaten, the kind and plenty of grass in the fields or hay in the stables. But the amount of butter in it seems to come from something in the animal herself.
You have often heard, and perhaps often seen, the different breeds of dairy cows, the Jerseys and others. There are many of these breeds. The Dutch cattle, those that come from Holland, are mostly good milk-givers, also those of Holstein and Friesland yield a very full pail, and there are splendid milk-givers elsewhere.
All of us must have seen the beautiful cows from the Channel Islands, near the coast of France, known as Jerseys and Guernseys, often called Alderneys, now so common in our fields and which give such rich milk, from which splendid butter is made. We may also speak of the Ayrshire cow of Scotland, which is of high value to the cheese-maker. All these and other cows have been brought in numbers to this country, which has no good breeds of its own.
Did any of my readers ever try to churn cream into butter? Those who have done so did not find it very easy work. To lift a long rod up and down or turn a handle till your arms feel ready to drop off is never the best of fun. In past times all butter-making had to be done in this way, with some sort of churn, but now in large dairies a small engine is used to do the work. In our days great part of the butter is made in creameries to which the farmers take their milk. Here the cream from 600 or 800 cows may be dealt with by one skilful butter-maker, who handles it with great care, so that we get a better quality of butter than was of old made on most of the farms.
From Davis's Practical Farming
The Holstein Cow, a Great Milk Giver
This way of getting the butter from the cream was started in the United States, where now there are thousands of creameries in the many states. From this country it has spread to many parts of Europe, but there most of the butter is still made on the farm. Cheese is also made in the same wholesale way and American cheese is sold in many parts of the world.
We use here so much milk and butter that it is not easy for us to see how people anywhere can do without it. Yet there are parts of the world where cow's milk is not used. Thus if one should go to China he would find the people making no use of the milk of their cows. And in India the milk of the buffalo is liked better than that of the cow. Even in parts of Europe little use is made of milk and butter. This is the case in Italy, where olive oil takes the place of butter. But almost everywhere, except in India, much use is made of cattle for food, and of this something must now be said.