In conclusion, the following, condensed from a statement by Mr. Gold, of Connecticut, will show the importance not only of keeping the cows healthy hut also of exceptional cleanliness in the care of milk, from the time of milking through every stage of its manipulation. Cows differ almost as much in the quality of their milk as they do in their external form and appear ance. The amount of the principal constituents, as caseine or curd, butter, oil, and sugar, can be easily ascertained and their variations marked, but there are more subtle qualities, giving rise to. flavor and to its hygienic properties, which, while more difficult of determination, are of no less importance in a sanitary point of view and in the estimation of the customer. If the pro duct varies so much when the animal is in health, how will it be when disease supervenes to form another important element in the calculation? Cows often continue to give a good flow of milk under local and constitutional disorders. The cow-pox, the fouls, garget, disturbances of the alimentary canal, foot and mouth disease, and pleuro-pneumonia, though interrupting, do not always prevent, the secretion of milk. cow pox, even in its mildest form, often causes the teats to crack and bleed, and the exudation may drop into the pail. Harsh handling of the udder in milking, or some slight injury, often causes one-quarter to give bloody milk; and garget, when it does not entirely stop the flow of milk, injures its quality in all degrees of vileness. All the secretions of an unhealthy animal must be tainted, and milk is no exception. Garlic and onions, and in sonic degree the cabbage family, to which the turnip belongs, give their peculiar odor to the milk. Weedy pastures abound in
vegetation of strong odors and taste, liable to be transferred to the milk. Drink as well as food may introduce impurities. Out of 170 families supplied with milk from a dairy in Islington, England, seventy suffered from typhoid fever. One hundred and sixty-eight individual cases occurred in ten weeks, and thirty died. An investigation showed that the cows drank water . from an old underground tank, built of wood and much decayed. Prof. Law, of Cornell Univer sity, relates a similar case where the milk had a ropy or 'slimy character, and a microscopic examination revealed the presence of certain animated germs, which had their rise in the filthy pool, from which the cows drank. These entered into the secreted milk, and there multi plied to such a degree as to render it entirely unfit for food. Even impure air breathed by the cow will taint her milk. It is reported on good authority that the milk from a dairy in the State of New York when brought to the cheese-factory was found tainted, and on examination the cause was discovered to be a putrid carcase lying in the pasture. Milk and cream set in the dairy are very susceptible to odors of every kind. The smoke of the kitchen, of cooking vegetables, are readily absorbed. The proximity of the hog-pen, or of the milking-yard, sometimes taints the milk. Wherever milk is kept, either in the spring-house or dairy, every pains should be taken to secure a pure atmosphere. When the milk is set in a kitchen, dust and smoke will effect it injuriously, and first-quality butter can not be made from it.