als, or the particular purpose for which they are
kept.

Relative to the nutrition of cows for dairy purposes, milk may be
regarded as a material for the manufacture of butter and cheese; and,
according to the purpose for which the milk is intended to be employed,
whether for the manufacture of butter or the production of cheese, the
cow should be differently fed.

Butter contains carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, and no nitrogen. Cheese,
on the contrary, is rich in nitrogen. Food which contains much fatty
matter, or substances which in the animal system are readily converted
into fat, will tend to increase the proportion of cream in milk. On the
other hand, the proportion of caseine or cheesy matter in milk is
increased by the use of highly nitrogenized food. Those, then, who
desire much cream, or who produce cream for the manufacture of butter,
select food likely to increase the proportion of butter in the milk. On
the contrary, where the principal object is the production of milk rich
in curd--that is, where cheese is the object of the farmer--clover,
peas, bran-meal, and other plants which abound in legumine--a
nitrogenized organic compound, almost identical in properties and
composition with caseine, or the substance which forms the curd of
milk--will be selected.

And so the quality, as well as the quantity, of butter in the milk,
depends on the kind of food consumed and on the general health of the
animal. Cows fed on turnips in the stall always produce butter inferior
to that of cows living upon the fresh and aromatic grasses of the
pastures.

Succulent food in which water abounds--the green grass of irrigated
meadows, green clover, brewers' and distillers' refuse, and the
like--increases the quantity, rather than the quality, of the milk; and
by feeding these substances the milk-dairyman studies his own interest,
and makes thin milk without diluting it with water--though, in the
opinion of some, this may be no more legitimate than watering the milk.

But, though the yield of milk may be increased by succulent or watery
food, it should be given so as not to interfere with the health of the
cow.

Food rich in starch, gum, or sugar, which are the respiratory elements,
an excess of which goes to the production of fatty matters, increases
the butter in milk. Quietness promotes the secretion of fat in animals
and increases the butter. Cheese will be increased by food rich in
albumen, such as the leguminous plants