Page:EB1911 - Volume 07.djvu/761

Rh pounds by 10: thus, the Shorthorn cow Heroine III. gave 52.4 ℔, or 5.24 gallons, of milk per day. The table is incidentally of interest as showing how superior as milch kine are the unregistered or non-pedigree Shorthorns—which are typical of the great majority of dairy cows in the United Kingdom—as compared with the pedigree animals entered, or eligible for entry, in Coates’s Herd-Book. The evening’s milk, it should be added, is nearly always richer in fat than the morning’s, but the percentages in the table relate to the entire day’s milk.

The milking trials are based upon a chemical test, as it is necessary to determine the percentage of fat and of solids other than fat in each sample of milk. The butter test, on the other hand, is a churn test, as the cream has to be separated from the milk and churned. The following is the scale of points used at the London dairy show in making awards in butter tests:—

One point for every ounce of butter; one point for every completed ten days since calving, deducting the first forty days. Maximum allowance for period of lactation, 12 points.

Fractions of ounces of butter, and incomplete periods of less than ten days, to be worked out in decimals and added to the total points.

In the case of cows obtaining the same number of points, the prize to be awarded to the cow that has been the longest time in milk.

No prize or certificate to be given in the case of:—
 * (a) Cows under five years old failing to obtain 28 points.
 * (b) Cows five years old and over failing to obtain 32 points.

—Prize Shorthorn and Jersey Cows in the Butter Tests, London Dairy Show, 1900.

The manner in which butter tests are decided will be rendered clear by a study of Table II. It is seen that whilst the much larger Shorthorn cows—having a bigger frame to maintain and consuming more food—gave both more milk and more butter in the day of twenty-four hours, the Jersey milk was much the richer in fat. In the case of the first-prize Jersey the “butter ratio,” as it is termed, was excellent, as only 13.83 ℔ of milk were required to yield 1 ℔ of butter; in the case of the second-prize Shorthorn, practically twice this quantity (or 27.11 lb) was needed. Moreover, if the days in milk are taken into account, the difference in favour of the Jersey is seen to be 123 days.

—Summary of the English Jersey Cattle Society’s Butter Tests, Fourteen Years, 1886–1899.

The butter-yielding capacity of the choicest class of butter cows, the Jerseys, is amply illustrated in the results of the butter tests conducted by the English Jersey Cattle Society over the period of fourteen years 1886 to 1899 inclusive. These tests were carried out year after year at half a dozen different shows, and the results are classified in Table III. according to the age of the animals. The average time in milk is measured by the number of days since calving, and the milk and butter yields are those for the day of twenty-four hours. The last column shows the “butter ratio.” This number is lower in the case of the Jerseys than in that of the general run of dairy cows. The average results from the total of 1023 cows of the various ages are:—One day’s milk, 32 ℔ 2 oz., equal to about 3 gallons or 12 quarts; one day’s butter, 1 ℔ 10 oz.; butter ratio, 19.13 or about 16 pints of milk to 1 ℔ of butter. Individual yields are sometimes extraordinarily high. Thus at the Tring show in 1899 the three leading Jersey cows gave the following results:—

The eight prize-winning Jerseys on this occasion, with an average weight of 916 ℔ and an average of 117 days in milk, yielded an average of 2 ℔ 9 oz. of butter per cow in the twenty-four hours, the butter ratio working out at 16.69. At the Tring show of 1900 a Shorthorn cow Cherry gave as much as 4 ℔ 4 oz. of butter in twenty-four hours; she had been in milk 41 days, and her butter ratio worked out at 15.79, which is unusually good for a big cow.

In the six years 1895 to 1900 inclusive 285 cows of the Shorthorn, Jersey, Guernsey and Red Polled breeds were subjected to butter tests at the London dairy show, and the general results are summarized in Table IV.

Although cows in the showyard may perhaps be somewhat upset by their unusual surroundings, and thus not yield so well as at home, yet the average results of these butter-test trials over a number of years are borne out by the private trials that have taken place in various herds. The trials have, moreover, brought into prominence the peculiarities of different breeds, such as: (a) that the Shorthorns, Red Polls and Kerries, being cattle whose milk contains small fat globules, are better for milk than the Jerseys and Guernseys, whose milk is richer, containing larger-sized fat globules, and is therefore more profitable for converting into butter; (b) that the weights of the animals, and consequently the proportionate food, must be taken into account in estimating the cost of the dairy produce; (c) that the influence of the stage reached in the period of lactation is much more marked in some breeds than in others.

—Average Butter Yields and Butter Ratios at the London Dairy Show, Six Years, 1895–1900.

An instructive example of the milk-yielding capacity of Jersey cows is afforded in the carefully kept records of Lord Rothschild’s herd at Tring Park, Herts. Overleaf are given the figures for four years, the gallons being calculated at the rate of 10 ℔ of milk to the gallon.