Babcock, Stephen Moulton

Stephen Moulton Babcock (1843–1931) was a U.S. agricultural chemist. He is best known for his Babcock test in determining dairy butterfat in milk processing, in cheese processing, and in the "single-grain experiment" that would lead to the development of nutrition as a science.

Born on a farm in Oneida County, New York, Babcock earned a B.S. from Tufts College and a masters from Cornell University before earning a doctorate in organic chemistry at the University of Göttingen, Germany. Upon his return to the United States in 1881, Babcock took up the role of an agricultural chemist at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, New York where his first assignment was to determine the proper feed ratios of carbohydrate, fat, and protein from cow excrement using chemical analysis. His findings determined that the excrement's chemical composition was similar to that of the feed with the only major exception being the ash. These results were tested and retested, and his results were found to be similar to German studies done earlier. This led Babcock to think about what would happen if the cows were fed a single grain (barley, corn, wheat) though that test would not occur for nearly twenty-five years.