No. 6. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 833 



isliijij^ly loii^- time. The milkers are bv no means as elean as tbey 

 miglit be, in person or dress, the metallie pots are never steamed and 

 rarely scalded, but are washed clean and aired. The cows are in the 

 best of health, with the purest of food, but they have poor water. 

 Their bodies are clean and they are always milked in the open air, 

 M'ith cleanly surroundings. If the milk sours in less than 24 hours, 

 as it seldom does, it is churned entire. Otherwise the milk is 

 skimmed at the end of 24 or 36 hours, and the cream churned the 

 same day, or the next. Churning ordinarily occurs every morning 

 and early, while it is cool. The cream when churned has developed 

 but little acidity, and the butter has a mild and rather flat flavor. 

 Pure cultures, ferments and starters are unknown. Dash churns are 

 used, both of vertical and barrel form. Some horizontal barrel 

 churns are operated by a one-horse sweep-power. The butter is 

 gathered in the churn, in mass, after very thorough washing, lifted 

 out and worked in a wooden bowl or long tray, with the bare hands. 

 Salt is never used, at least not at the farm dairy where churning is 

 done. In cleaning the churn at the final rinsing, a bunch of the 

 common nettle plant (Urtica Urens) fresh or dried, is shaken about 

 in the churn. No reason is given for this, except that it has always 

 been done; yet some, on being pressed, say they think it helps to 

 cleanse the churn, and others that it "makes the butter come." The 

 churning seems to be exhaustive and the butter is generally well- 

 m.ade, although rather over-worked. No fat testing is known and 

 no means exist of telling whether fat losses occur in the skim milk 

 and buttermilk; these by-products are^ however, judiciously fed 

 to calves or pigs. . The milk room is sometimes large enough to ac- 

 commodate the churn and churning, but ordinarily this work and 

 the general dairy cleaning is done in an adjoining room, where there 

 are provisions for a fire, and set-kettle. The premises and uten- 

 sils are usually kept very clean. The work is done by women and 

 there is no stinting of labor. There is no scientific practice or study 

 of problems involved, all is done according to traditional rules and 

 habit. Yet the average butter of Normandy is well-made and good 

 of its kind. 



Twice a week the farmers' wives or daughters take the butter to 

 market at the neighboring town or village. It is prepared early 

 in the morning, formed into big lumps, wrapped closely in large, 

 coarse linen cloths and put into wicker baskets of the shape of a 

 flower-pot. This form or lump of butter is called a inotte. If quite 

 warm, the mottes are made smaller than the baskets, and between 

 cloth and baskets the space is filled with clean, unbroken wheat 

 straw. Straw is drawn over the top, unless the basket has a good 

 cover. These baskets vary in size and the mottes of butter weigh 



53—6—1903 



