402 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Simon Plimpton, of Holliston, who exhibited a very good speci- 

 men of butter, and would have been entitled to a premium if he 

 had complied with the requirements of the society. He gave 

 the committee no information how he made this good butter; 

 only the manner of keeping the cows and their produce, which 

 is as follows : — 



" The dairy I offer for jowv consideration, consists of three 

 cows : one native, six years old, and two Devons, three years 

 old. Ten days in June they made 38 lbs. of butter, and in ten 

 days in September, 34 lbs. The amount of butter from May 

 20th to September 15th, was 390 lbs. During that time 50 lbs. 

 of two-meal cheese were made. Their feed was only grass till 

 the 15th of August: after that, grass and corn fodder." 



Many things are requisite for the manufacturing of good, 

 butter. Every thing connected with dairy utensils should be 

 kept as clean as possible. The room or the cellar in which the 

 milk is kept, should be made as sweet as air, water and lime 

 can make it. No good butter can be made from cream standing 

 in foul cellars or rooms. The best butter is made from cream 

 which is taken off the milk at the end of twenty-four hours. 

 Allow the same milk to stand twenty-four hours longer, the 

 milk skimmed and the cream churned, and it will produce very 

 poor butter, — tasteless, and about the color of cheese-curd. 

 (The above remarks apply to the warm season of the year.) 

 The proportion of butter made from the two skimmings of the 

 milk, will be the first, two-thirds, the second, one-third ; and 

 by putting the two together, you would increase the quantity 

 but diminish the quality. Butter commanding twenty-five cents 

 per pound, by the union of the two, would readily bring thirty 

 seven cents per pound by leaving off the latter. Probably one of 

 the greatest causes why there is so much poor butter brought 

 into the market, is, the cream is suffered to stand too long upon 

 the milk before it is skimmed; and it would not be too bold to 

 assert, that one-half of the butter that is made in the warm 

 season of the year, is made from the cream taken from sour 

 milk. When the good dairy-woman discovers little Ininches or 

 blotches arising on her cream, the sooner the cream is removed 

 from the milk, the better. Another very important thing is the 

 temperature of the cream when you commence churning. In 

 the warm season of the year, it should be fifty-six degrees; in the 



