The oleine of oil is known to be more easy of consumption and more available for respiration than margarine—a property to which its use in medicine may be attributable. If we examine the animal fats, tallow, suet, and other fat, they are almost wholly of the solid class, stearine or margarine, closely resembling or identical with the margarine in plants; whilst butter is composed of oleine and margarine, combining both the proximate elements found in vegetable oils.
It seems worthy of remark that a cow can yield a far greater weight of butter than she can store up in solid fat; numerous instances occur where a cow gives off two pounds of butter per day, or fourteen pounds per week, whilst half that quantity will probably rarely be laid on in fat. If you allow a cow to gain sixteen pounds per week, and reckon seven for fat, there will only remain nine pounds for flesh, or, deducting the moisture, scarcely three pounds (2.97) per week, equal to .42, or less than half a pound per day, of dry fibrin.
The analyses of butter show a very varying proportion of oleine and margarine fats: summer butter usually contains of oleine sixty and margarine forty per cent., whilst in winter butter these proportions are reversed, being forty of oleine to sixty of margarine. By ordinary treatment the quantity of butter during winter is markedly inferior. The common materials for dairy cows in winter are straw with turnips or mangel, hay alone, or hay with mangel. If we examine these materials, we find them deficient in oil, or in starch, sugar, etc. If a cow consume two stones or twenty-eight pounds of hay a day, which is probably more than she can be induced to eat on an average, it will be equal in dry material to more than one hundred pounds of young grass, which will also satisfy a cow. That one hundred pounds of young grass will yield more butter, will scarcely admit of a doubt. The twenty-eight pounds of hay will be equal in albuminous matter and in oil to the one hundred pounds of grass; but in the element of starch, sugar, etc., there is a marked difference. During the growth of the plant, the starch and sugar are converted into woody fibre, in which form they are scarcely digestible or available for respiration. It seems, then, not improbable that, when a cow is supplied with hay only, she will consume some portion of the oleine oil for respiration, and yield a less quantity of butter poorer in oleine.
| If you assume summer butter to contain of oleine, | 60 | per | cent. |
| If you assume summer butter to contain of margarine, | 40 | “ | “ |
| 100 | “ | “ | |
| If the cow consume of the oleine, | 36 | “ | “ |
| The quantity of butter will be reduced from 100 to | 64 | “ | “ |
| And the proportions will then be, of oleine, | 40 | “ | “ |
| And the proportions will then be, of margarine, | 60 | “ | “ |
| 100 | “ | “ |
If you supply turnips or mangel with hay, the cow will consume less of hay; you thereby substitute a material richer in sugar, etc., and poorer in oil. Each of these materials, in the quantity a cow can consume, is deficient in the supply of albumen necessary to keep up the condition of an animal giving a full yield of milk. To effect this, recourse must be had to artificial or concentrated substances of food, rich in albuminous matter.
It can scarcely be expected, nor is it desirable, that practical farmers should apply themselves to the attainment of proficiency in the art of chemical investigations; this is more properly the occupation of the professor of science. The following simple experiment, however, seems worth mentioning. On several occasions, during winter, I procured samples of butter from my next neighbor. On placing these, with a like quantity of my own, in juxtaposition before the fire, my butter melted with far greater rapidity—by no means an unsafe test of a greater proportion of oleine.
The chemical investigation of our natural and other grasses has hitherto scarcely had the attention which it deserves. The most valuable information on this subject is in the paper by Professor Way, on the nutritive and fattening properties of the grasses, in vol. xiv., p. 171, of the Royal Agricultural Society’s Journal. These grasses were nearly all analyzed at the flowering time, a stage at which no occupier of grass-land would expect so favorable a result in fattening. We much prefer pastures with young grass not more than a few inches high, sufficient to afford a good bite. With a view to satisfy myself as to the difference of composition of the like grasses at different stages of growth, I sent to Professor Way a specimen of the first crop of hay, cut in the end of June, when the grass was in the early stage of flowering, and one of aftermath, cut towards the close of September, from the same meadow, the analyses of which I give:
| HAY, FIRST CROP. | AFTERMATH HAY | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Moisture, | 12.02 | Moisture, | 11.87 |
| Albuminous matter, | 9.24 | Oil and fatty matter, | 6.84 |
| Oil and fatty matter, | 2.68 | Albuminous matter, | 9.84 |
| Starch, gum, sugar, | 39.75 | Starch, gum, sugar, | 42.25 |
| Woody fibre, | 27.41 | Woody fibre, | 19.77 |
| Mineral matter, | 8.90 | Mineral matter, | 9.43 |
| 100.00 | 100.00 | ||
A comparison between these will show a much greater percentage of woody fibre,—27.41 in the first crop to 19.77 in the aftermath. The most remarkable difference, however, is in the proportion of oil, being 2.68 in the first crop to 6.84 in the aftermath.
On inquiry from an observing tenant of a small dairy farm of mine, who has frequently used aftermath hay, I learn that, as compared with the first crop, he finds it induces a greater yield of milk, but attended with some impoverishment in the condition of the cow, and that he uses it without addition of turnips or other roots, which he gives when using hay of the first crop—an answer quite in accordance with what might be expected from its chemical composition.