Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 196, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1910 — MUSIC CHARMS COW [ARTICLE]

MUSIC CHARMS COW

Gives More Milk While Orchestra k Plays Classical Pieces. Lake Bluff Dairy Woman Tests Theory of Michigan Farmer and Finds Waltzes Are Most Soothing— Don’t Like Ragtime. Chicago.—Sad-eyed cows on the farm of Mrs*. Scott Durand in Lake Bluff the other day lost their remorseful feelings, became happy-faced, and gave more milk than they had been accustomed to, because the farm hands milked the 61 Jerseys and Holsteins to the sweet strains of the “Blue Danube” waltz and other selections rendered by an orchestra. Music-impregnated milk is a fact and not a theory, according to the North Shore society woman, who watched the cows being milked while nine musicians wafted sweet music over the farm. Milk taken from the “bossies,” while the orchestra sent forth soothing music, tasted better and had a more happy effect upon the drinkers than the milk served which had not. been “music impregnated,” according to those who went through the test. The unique test was made to prove the assertion of a Michigan farmer that cows give more milk while music Is being rendered. The music calmed the nerves of the cows and their udders let down all the milk in them. Soon after the milking had been finished, Mrs. Durand, who is known as the “Queen of Hostesses,” served the liquid to the musicians. “This experiment has been a perfect revelation to me,” said Mrs. Durand after Helen, Clarice, Flossie and No. 52, the first four " cows, had been milked to the music of the orchestra. Throwing her arms around Helen Mrs. Durand declared that she had never seen her cows stand so still and contentedly before.. “That’s perfectly lovely! Look at their eyes! The cows want more music,” she pleaded.

Then the orchestra shifted from a classical selection to ragtime music. Suddenly the cows grew restive. "Horrors,” declared Mrs. Durand when the orchestra began to play the Cubanola Glide. “Stop it, my cows are cultured and abhor ragtime music as much as they do swearing.” Then the musicians started up a selection from “Tosca,” “I Live for Love and Music,” and to the amazement of Mrs. Durand and the milkers, the cows became quiet and contented again. j “Do you know I feel that my cows are the mothers of the hundreds of babies fed on Crab Tree farm milk,” said the society leader, who had invited the orchestra out to her farm to give a practical demonstration to prove if cows give more milk to the tunes of sweet music than otherwise. Mrs. Durand has been convinced of this fact and intends to equip her barn with several phonographs.