UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE B enj. Ide Wheeler, President BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA Thomas Forsyth Hunt, Dean and Director CIRCULAR No. 94. THE DAIRYMAN'S RELATION TO QUALITY. By L. M. Davis. Quality is the keynote of a permanent success. Though the indi- vidual dairyman may doubt this, its truth is established when the dairy business of the whole of California, present and future, is considered. Failure to realize what constitutes success, refusal to meet the obligation which every dairyman owes to the dairy industry, and competition are at least three conditions which have brought upon dairymen of this state the great problem of how quality can be raised, for the place has been reached where improved conditions must prevail, lest the business suffer materially through a more serious quality situation than was anticipated would exist even at this time. During 1912 an average score of but 91^ points was placed upon over 150 lots of butter sent to be scored at the University Farm at Davis, and of this number less than thirty per cent scored 93 points, the requirement for the highest market grade known as "Extras." The percentage of "Extras" changing hands on the principal butter markets is even lower than this, and less than ten per cent of the butter sold in these places will so qualify. The cause for this condition is the improper treatment which milk and cream receive before being placed in the hands of the manufacturer. Every person who handles milk or cream knows that they are perish- able products, which require special care. Failure to observe the necessary precautions in handling these products must therefore be considered as a disregard of the principles underlying quality. Were dairymen to apply themselves closely in two particulars, over ninety per cent of the quality troubles would disappear, and this raised standard would be accompanied by a corresponding gain in net profits. Cleanliness and low temperatures are two features the abuse of which leads to low grade dairy production. A large percentage of the bad flavors in milk, cream and butter are the result of dirt, manure, hair, and flies getting into milk during the milking process, and this becomes the more serious for the reason that seventy-five per cent of these con- taminating materials go into solution and can be removed in no way, but remain to cause the development of unfavorable fermentations which produce bad flavors in the market production. The results of the butter scoring contests show that eighty to ninety per cent of the criticisms made in California creamery butter are due to defective methods of handling cream before it reaches the creameries. (1) — 2 — Dairy conditions which need improvement include not only the maintaining of more sanitary dairy barns, more attention in the mat- ter of cleaning cows previous to milking/ clean milkers, properly con- structed and cleaned utensils and more care in washing separator bowls, but the length of time and the manner in which milk and cream are held. Along with cleanliness must be the other desirable feature, low temperatures. While the market milk dairyman realizes this to some extent on account of his product being more perishable, the dairyman who sells cream often fails to appreciate the advantage of cooling cream immediately after separating, and thus a condition most favorable to deterioration begins to exist shortly after the milk is drawn. Freshly drawn milk is at an optimum temperature for bac- terial growth, and unfavorable fermentations can be checked in no better way than by immediate cooling. If the milk is to be separated, skimming should take place directly after milking, but the cream should be cooled before being mixed with previous skimmings. A tank cooler is so inexpensively constructed and operated that there can be no reasonable objection to its use. Such a cooler may be made from a box or barrel, and should be provided with an inlet at the bot- tom and a discharge at the top. Ordinary milk cans are successfully used as containers, and the water used in cooling may be run into a stock tank. Low temperatures of themselves are effective in helping preserve quality, but an ideal product results when they are accompa- nied by cleanliness in production. Careless practices on the dairy favor the adoption of burdensome regulations. With ideal methods in use such would be eliminated, and expensive, artificial processes, such as pasteurization, would be unnecessary. Improvement in the quality of dairy products must begin with the producer, so the dairyman holds the key to the situa- tion. Every effort of the consumer, the distributor, or the manufac- turer, will work to his ultimate benefit. Where payment on the quality basis is established, a premium of three to five cents per pound of butter fat is given for cream of highest grade. Such cream can be produced best by paying close attention to cleanliness and immediate and thorough cooling. Were the matter of quality carried to the point where milk and cream would be produced under conditions which prevail upon certified dairies, it would represent an impossible expense, for excessive prices could not be obtained. But this extreme is unnecessary, and the dairy business of California would receive a wonderful impetus if the bulk of our dairymen would but observe the conditions which they know should prevail.