178 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Avater that will " dance, as well as sing." No department in 

 the farm-house requires the "carking care" and scrupulous 

 cleanliness of butter-making. The milk-vat, or stationary 

 pan, to say the least, is labor-saving, not naming other excel- 

 lences. The cream ought to be removed as soon as the milk 

 becomes slightly sour. (Cream is deteriorated when the pan 

 of milk is loppered.) Sweeter butter is made from milk that 

 has set but twelve hours, than that at twenty-four. Cream, 

 while collecting, should be stirred in the pail when additions 

 are made, and the pail slightly covered. Churning should 

 be done frequently ; the stroke of the floats should be slow 

 and uniform. The temperature of the cream, when put in 

 the churn, should be from 60 to 62 degrees. Ice and water 

 ought to be used sparingly about butter, and the buttermilk 

 well extracted. About three-fourths of an ounce of salt, to 

 one pound of butter, is requisite to give it a relish, leaving 

 the peculiar fragrant smell that marks "gilt-edged" butter. 

 In this stage of butter-making, judgment is necessary not to 

 overwork it, so as to destroy the firmness or grain. When 

 cooled, remove the brine, and mould it to suit the market. 



Third. Butter-rolls designed for a city market, or country 

 store, ought to be wrapped in strips of thin cotton cloth, 

 packed into a convenient sized tin box, and this inclosed in a 

 larger wooden box, ample or ice. Butter, how well soever 

 manufactured at the farm-house, may become inferior in 

 quality by improper packing and careless transportation ; but 

 more frequently by being put into the merchant's tub or 

 refrigerator not overclean, or by contact with poorer qualities 

 of butter. Too frequently the butter-tub is left open in the 

 proximity of codfish, tobacco, kerosene, and various odors of 

 the back store. Many consumers, as well as merchants, are 

 not aware how soon uncovered butter becomes air-slacked, or 

 how rapidly it absorbs surrounding odors. 



When the consumer is more willing to pay for butter 

 according to its quality — as he does for different qualities of 

 cloth — then there would be an incentive to furnish a better 

 article, and the painstaking, skilled butter-maker would 

 receive her full reward. 



Mrs. H. C. Haskell, /or the Committee. 



