264 ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 



by exposure to the atmosphere, even if it should stand but a few 

 hours. In very hot weather, ice should be put into the cream, 

 to keep the temperature below 65 "^ Fahrenheit; it being far bet- 

 ter for the butter to keep the temperature below this point, than 

 it is to allow it to rise to 70^ or 80°, until the cream is to be 

 churned, and then to bring the temperature down to the degree 

 desired. The care which the cream receives is the most impor- 

 tant consideration in the whole process of making butter. If 

 milk is not kept in a good place, where the cream will rise well 

 — if the milk is not skimmed at the proper time — and, if the 

 cream is not well taken care of after it is skimmed, we may have 

 the best cows, the best churn, and the best worker in America, 

 but will not be able to make good butter. There are many con- 

 siderations, of no small importance in making butter, of which 

 we cannot now speak; and for the sake of brevity we pass to 



Churning. — The butter contained in cream is enveloped in little 

 sacks of curd; and the grand object of churning cream is, to 

 liberate these little globules of butter by opening the sacks. This 

 we cannot do by simple mechanical means. The cream must be 

 of a temperature which, when exposed to the air, will so affect 

 these little sacks as to make them crack open and allow the 

 globules of butter to escape. If the cream be too warm, or too 

 cold, the butter will not come. '^ At 40° Fahrenheit, you 

 might churn from January to March, or, at 100°, you might churn 

 from June to September, and no butter would come. Or, if you 

 were to exclude the air entirely from the inside of the churn, you 

 might roll that churn, with the cream in it, from Cape Horn to 

 Labrador, and the butter would not come. There is a certain 

 degree of temperature, at which, if the cream is churned, it will 

 yield the best and the most butter. Repeated and well conduc- 

 ted experiments of the best dairymen, have shown that degree of 

 temperature to be about 65"^ Fahrenheit. It would seem that if 

 the cream were churned at a temperature when the butter would 

 come in the very shortest period of time, that would be the tem- 

 perature to have the cream when it is being churned. But expe- 

 riment has decided this not to be the fact. By churning when 

 the temperature of the cream is as high as it can be, and allow 

 the butter to come, the butter will be very soft and much inferior 

 to butter that is churned at about 65°. By churning when the 



