140 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



butter if 30U have the best herd of cattle and the best dairyman in 

 the world to make the butter. And cleanliness begins in the barn. 

 Your cows and barn have got to be kept clean, and the barn free 

 from bad odors. The cow that breathes bad air all the time will 

 have her milk affected by it, and about that there is no question. 

 And the feed must be clean. I know I shall be doubted in a good 

 many statements ; but I go so far as to sa3- with reference to feed, 

 a fact derived from my own experience in the sale of butter in the 

 open market, that one feed of turnips to one cow in a herd of 

 twenty-four cost me ten cents a pound on the butter of that churn- 

 ing ; and that seems rather a broad statement. You get used to 

 the taste of a certain butter. Jf I feed my cows on bran and oil 

 meal with an}' regularity I get word directly from my dealer in 

 town that I am feeding something I had better not. People don't 

 like it. 80 in feeding my cows I have come down to feeding well- 

 cured corn-stalks, well-cured oat-fodder, early cut hay and corn 

 meal. I am milking from sixteen to twenty in my herd. I can 

 feed a little oil meal once in three or four days to one cow at a time 

 and have no fault found ; but more than that in the way of feeding 

 oil meal or bran I have never been able to do. I have found that 

 if 3'ou put oil meal or bran in your mouth and chew it up so as to 

 get the taste, that taste you will get again in the butter made from 

 cows fed with the same. I am speaking, of course, of fancy lump 

 butter. 



There is a good deal in the manner of manipulating butter, I 

 have tried a good many methods of making it. My barn is well 

 ventilated and the air in it is fresh and sweet, but as soon as a can 

 is filled with milk it is taken out and put into the creamer at a 

 temperature of 94°. I use ice the year round and try to have the 

 water in my creamer always below 40. All of the cream is up 

 inside of twelve hours, but if I am not milking a large number of 

 cows I generally allow it to set on the milk for twenty-four hours. 

 I churn three times a week. In the winter the cream is kept at a 

 temperature of about 6.5, about ready to churn, and in the summer 

 it is kept cooler until twelve or fourteen hours before churning, or 

 the time necessary' to get it to the proper temperature for that. 

 The cream must be slightly acid to give the best results to the 

 butter. If you keep it too cold and then laise it to a temperature 

 ot 85 or 90 when the right time comes round to get it ripe to churn, 

 and then let it cool down again, you injure the flavor. You damage 



