DAIRY PRODUCTS. 119 



No arbitrary rule can ever be laid down for the successful 

 making of the best quality of butter, because some of the 

 conditions are ever changing ; but the cow must be a good 

 one, and fed upon old, rich, sweet, upland pasture, with 

 plenty of pure, clean water, and the manufacture must be 

 perfect. The main points in securing the best quality of 

 butter seem to be having clean, healthy, rich milk ; setting 

 the milk in a moist, pure atmosphere, and keeping it at an 

 even temperature while the cream is rising ; churning prop- 

 erl}^ and thoroughly washing out all of the buttermilk ; and 

 also a thorough and even working-in of the salt. Cleanli- 

 ness in all these points is an absolute necessity. Cream 

 should be taken from the milk within thirty-six hours at the 

 longest ; and great care should be taken that it is perfectly 

 sweet when churned. Every particle of buttermilk should 

 be washed out in very cold water, with paddles, and never 

 with the hand. An old, erroneous idea prevails here, that 

 the milk should be set in shallow pans for the cream to rise 

 properly; but the Orange-county farmers say the yield of 

 cream is as great with seventeen inches of milk as at any 

 other depth, the quantity of milk being taken into consid- 

 eration. They further say that the cream thus raised is of 

 better quality, as a much smaller surface is exposed to the air, 

 and the top of the cream cannot become dry to so great an 

 extent, and so injure the quality of the butter. Actual ex- 

 periments with milk in vessels two to eighteen inches deep 

 confirm the above. The depth of the cream was always in 

 proportion to the quantity of milk. 



Wm. J. RoTCH, Chairman. 



