275 



not weather, resort may be bad to the cellar as tbe safest place, under the 

 circumstances. From a fair trial of both ways of keeping milk, I have no hesi- 

 tation in (riving it as my opinion, that a cool room above ground is decidedly 

 preferable to one in the cellar, and that every reasonable effort should be made 

 to provide such a room, and to make it cool by shade trees and other means, 

 where it is desired to have sweet and luscious butter. I have no doubt that by 

 the exercise of ingenuity, a house, impenetrable to heat, might be built, and at 

 small expense, somewhat after the fashion of our modern ice-houses, that in the 

 hottest weather would keep milk sweet till the cream has all risen. These houses 

 are made with double sides, about a foot apart, and the space between is filled 

 in with dry tan — a non-conductor of heat ; the roof is left with a space aloft for 

 ventilation, while a double door precludes the admission of much hot air, on en- 

 trance to the house. 



In the milk-room the greatest cleanliness is indispensable. It being a cool 

 place, sometimes it happens that other articles besides milk, cream, and butter, 

 are deposited in it for safe keeping. But this is ruinous economy. Flesh and 

 fish may keep there, but they taint the atmosphere, and leave a real sting be- 

 liind, as the consumers of butter, to their sorrow, sometimes find. A milk-room 

 should be used only for its legitimate purposes, and not made into an omnium- 

 gatherum. So, too, the utmost neatness should be used in all the management of 

 the dairy — carefully clean and scald the pans, the pails, the jars, and scrub off" all 

 droppings of milk from shelves and floor in the milk-room. A drop of milk in 

 a few days grows rancid, and communicates its effluvia to the whole room. But 

 it would be difficult to enumerate all the ways in which tbe dairy-maid should 

 exercise cleanliness; suffice it to say, that if she has not a love of neatness, either 

 innate or acquired — a pride in having every thing clean and nice, and in being 

 herself the pattern of neatness, she has not the proper qualification for her duty — 

 she has mistaken her calling, and the sooner she retires from it, unless she turn 

 over an entire new leaf, the better for her, and the cream, and the butter, that 

 pass through her hands. 



In the large dairies of New York, the milk is churned, without being set for 

 the cream to rise. The advantages of this practice, I am unable to treat of, as 

 it does not prevail in this section of the country. Cream only is churned here. 

 The sour milk is fed out to swine, and for weaned pigs no better article of food 

 can be used. In a dairy of ten or twelve cows, it is more usual to churn but 

 once a week — though some farmers churn twice. In hot weather, it is a great 

 object to have the butter come hard, as it can be more conveniently managed, 

 and is actually better, than when it comes soft. The cream, therefore, nmst be 

 well cooled before churning. It is sometimes placed in vaults dug in the cellar, 

 and sometimes lowered in cans into the well. If the cream is not cooled, it is 



