FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 279 



that the water cotning from the ilowiiig weU would ilow out under this parti- 

 tion ; the next partition was made tight at the bottom, but was cut away at the 

 top of tlie trougli, so that the water would have to How over the top of this 

 partition ; the next at bottom, and the next at top, and so on, thereby giving a 

 perfect circulation of water, leaving no dead water, and maintaining it all at 

 the same temperature. My milk pans are a large tin pan 15 inches deep and 

 19 inches in diameter. Why I use this particular size of pans is simply this: 

 when I commenced the business I found that I had these pans on hand, — they 

 were made for the purpose of setting large glass bottles into for safety, — and I 

 made up my mind that they would be better than the dairy pails, besides sav- 

 ing the expense of buying. I have since tried the pails, and I like the pans 

 much better, because they are much more convenient for skimming, hold as 

 much as five dairy pails. The object of using these large pans is to save work, 

 as with 1110 it only makes one pan a day to skim, Avash and care for. 



I strain the milk, as I am doing this winter the night's and morning's, into 

 the same pan, so that I am only using three pans in my dairy of eight cows. 

 I see the ladies all shake their heads and say that will never do. What, strain 

 two milkings into the same pan I and have the milk fourteen inches deep? 

 AVliy the cream will never rise. But then I see that you are charitable and say, 

 *'just like a man." But I assure you, ladies, that the cream will rise, that the 

 depth of milk or the amount of surface exposed has nothing to do with its 

 creaming. My experience, along with some scientific experiments that have 

 been made by eminent professors, has proved conclusively that the cream will 

 rise just as well under those circumstances as it will when you spread it out all 

 over the house in small milk pans or stone jars. I can cite a better proof than 

 that. Several elderly ladies who visit our family, who know more about butter 

 making than I ever expect to know, who, when told how I manage, shake 

 their heads, know better, know that it will never cream that way. In order to 

 convince them we give them skim-milk, "for it is always sweet," to drink 

 and put in their coffee. I notice that when they come the second time they 

 always take their coffee clear, and as to drinking milk, why they prefer water. 



I let the milk set twenty-four hours after the lasc milking is strained into the 

 pan. Of course you understand that these pans are placed in three divisions of 

 the milk trough. When I skim it, using a pint cup such as the milk-men used 

 to use when they dipped their milk from the top of a large can, the cream is a 

 little over two inches thick. I then let it stand another twenty-four hours, 

 when I again skim it, getting a little creamy skum. The milk is now as blue 

 as a " whet stone." The only object in skimming the second time is this : In 

 the first skimming a little of the cream is mixed back with the milk by the 

 dipping of the cup. The milk is kept in this house the year round, winter as 

 well as summer, for I believe that the colder you can keep milk, and not have 

 it freeze, the quicker and better it will cream. In fact, I believe that if it is a 

 good and necessary thing to keep milk cool in the summer, in order to have it 

 cream, that it is equally as good for it in the winter time; but I find that the 

 most of our butter makers provide themselves with an icehouse to keep their 

 milk as cool as ice will do it in the summer time, in order that it may cream 

 out, "you know." And in the winter they will put it on the stove and scald 

 it, in order that it may cream, or in other words, they use just exactly the 

 opposite means in winter, to obtain the same results, as they use in the summer. 

 "Oh, consistency, thou art a jewel!" or if I might render the quotation in 

 words suitable to the profession, I would say: Oh, consistency, thou art a 

 cream of a jewel I 



