Domestic Animals / History and description of the horse, mule, cattle, sheep, swine, poultry and farm dogs; with directions for their management, breeding, crossing, rearing, feeding, and preparation for a profitable market; also their diseases and remedies. Together with full directions for the management of the dairy.

by Richard Lamb Allen

MILK

Is produced from the females of all the warm-blooded animals, which are enumerated among the mammaliæ. The milk of several animals is employed for domestic purposes, among different nations. That of the camel is used by the Arabs; the milk of the ass by the Spaniards, the Maltese, and the inhabitants of the Levant; that of the mare by the Cossacks, the Kirgheez, and other Tartars; and that of the goat, the ewe, and the cow, by most of the ancient, and with few exceptions, by every modern European nation. Within the last century, however, the use of all excepting cow's milk has been almost entirely discarded, among the most highly civilized people.

If we except some few Welsh and Swiss, or other emigrants, who resort to the goat and ewe for their dairy materials, for the first few years of their residence here, the cow is the only animal which is employed in America for producing milk. For this, she is pre-eminently fitted, and the modern improvement of this invaluable animal has carried her product of milk almost as far as can be reasonably looked for from a given amount of food; and although this is of about the average richness of the goat and ewe, and before that of the ass, the quantity she yields is frequently as 60 to 1, in favor of the cow, over the first two competitors. As a milk-giving animal, the cow is the best fitted for the purposes of civilized man; and she is made to contribute, not only to his health, his comfort, and his economy, but to many of his choicest luxuries. Milk contains every element of nutrition necessary to animal existence; and man can subsist, with unimpaired health and strength, if limited to this food alone.

The Constituents of Milk

Are butter, which varies from 2 to 6 per cent.; casein or cheese, usually 4 to 5, but sometimes varying from 3 to 15 per cent.; (the last excessive quantity, yielded only by the first

milk after calving;) milk-sugar, 4 to 6; salts or saline matter, 0.2 to 0.6; and water, 80 to 89.

There is much diversity in the product and quality of milk from cows of the same breed, the same food, and other circumstances and conditions, apparently equal. Thus, of a herd of 22, chiefly Ayrshire, one gave 84 quarts in one week, which afforded 3½ lbs. of butter; two others in the same time gave 86, yielding 5½ lbs.; and a fourth gave 88 quarts, making 7 lbs.

The amount of butter, however, which a given quantity of milk will produce, is not the only criterion of the value of the milk, except for this purpose alone. Some cows will yield more butter, others will produce more cheese; while for consumption, another may partially compensate, in the increased quantity of milk-sugar, and the saline matters, for a deficiency of both the other ingredients. But for dairy purposes, butter and cheese are the only measure of the value of milk; and a cow is esteemed good or indifferent, as she gives one or the other in the greatest abundance.

Circumstances which modify the Quantity and Character of Milk.

Besides the accidental variation in the quantity and quality of milk in different animals, before adverted to, there are many reliable causes which influence both. Of these, parentage has a most decided and uniform influence, frequently modified, however, in the particular individual, by some personal and controlling causes. But a cow, whose maternal ancestry on both sides are choice milkers, is almost certain to resemble them.

Food influences the quantity, rather than the quality. Boussingault tried numerous experiments, with cows fed on various kinds of food, and found the difference hardly appreciable in the quality of milk. Its true benefit is to be looked for in the increased quantity, through which, the valuable ingredients are distributed in nearly the same proportion, as when the product is materially lessened. By quality we mean to be understood, the amount of the ingredients, valuable for nutrition only; for it is certain, that there is a rich aromatic flavor, not only in milk, but in butter and cheese, which is afforded in various articles of food, and especially by the fresh green herbage which abounds in the pastures from spring to autumn.

Activity or rest has a great effect on both quantity and

quality. The less action, and the more quiet and rest, the greater the amount of milk and butter. But exercise is absolutely essential to the production of cheese. Butter may be made from cows confined in a stable, but cheese can only be profitably made from animals at pasture. It is supposed by physiologists, that the exercise in gathering their food, rather than any peculiarity in its character, is necessary to convert the nitrogenized tissues into the nitrogenized principle of caseum or cheese.

The time from calving, has also its effect. The first milk drawn from a cow after calving, has been found to yield over 15 per cent. of casein, while in its ordinary state it gives only three to five and a half. As the quantity of milk diminishes in a farrow cow, the quality improves within certain limits. Pregnancy affects the quality injuriously, and especially towards its latter stages; and a cow that is predisposed to giving milk, should be dried off a few weeks before its expiration, as it is then unfit for use.

Fat cows give poorer milk than such as are moderately lean; and young animals do not come up to the maximum of their quality, till after their third or fourth calving.

The milk first drawn from the udder, will yield only an eighth, and sometimes even a much less proportion of cream, than the strippings; and the milk which is drawn three times a day, is greatly inferior to such as is taken but once, though the latter is less abundant.

Excitement, or fretfulness; change of locality, or to a different herd, with new companions; separation from her calf; periodical heat; annoyance from flies, or worry from dogs; exposure to storms, severe cold, or an oppressive sun, and many similar causes, diminish the quantity of milk and butter; but some of these may reasonably be expected to increase the proportion of its casein.

Dr. Playfair found that the quantity of butter in the evening milk, after the cow had been at pasture all day, was 3.7 per cent., while the casein was 5.4; after lying quietly all night, the milk from the same cow, on the following morning, contained 5.6 per cent. of butter, and only 3.9 of casein. In stabling the cow, the butter was invariably in greater proportion than when allowed to ramble in the pasture; and the casein, with a single exception, was equally diminished.

[Fig. 17], is a number of glass tubes of equal size, set in a frame called a lactometer or cream guage. If milk from different cows be set in these, the depth of the cream will indicate their comparative richness.

Cream.

If milk be immediately set away in shallow vessels, after being taken from the cow, the cream rises to the surface, carrying with it most of the butter contained in the milk, and much of its casein also. Hence, the great nutritive properties of buttermilk, which retains the casein in very large proportions, much of it being rejected by the butter in its separation from the cream.

A temperature below 34°, will prevent the cream from rising in any considerable quantity, and preserve the milk unaltered for some weeks. Coagulating the milk from any cause, will equally prevent the separation of the cream. The elevation of temperature within certain limits, hastens the separation. Thus, at 50°, the cream will mostly have risen in 36 hours; at 55°, in 24; at 68°, in 18 or 20; and at 77°, in 10 or 12 hours.

Heating the milk near the boiling point, and then setting it away and allowing it to remain undisturbed, will soon cause the cream to rise. In the celebrated Orange dairy, near Baltimore, Md., this system was practised, by which, not only most of the cream was secured for butter, but in consequence of its rapid separation, the skimmed milk was sent to market within a few hours after being drawn; and the scalding imparted to it an agreeable flavor and apparent richness, which it did not really possess.

The celebrated clouted cream of Devonshire, England, and the butter made from it, contains an unusual quantity of

casein, the consequence of heating the milk. "It is prepared by straining the warm milk into large shallow pans into which a little water has previously been put, allowing these to stand from six to twelve hours, and then carefully heating them over a slow fire, or on a hot plate, till the milk approaches the boiling point. The milk, however, must not actually boil, nor must the skin of the cream be broken. The dishes are now removed into the dairy, and allowed to cool. In summer the cream should be churned on the following day; in winter it may stand over two days. The quantity of cream obtained is said to be one-fourth greater by this method, and the milk which is left is proportionably poor."—[Johnston.]