FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 133 



I insist if we are to make butter on the farm for a business, "sve must 

 liave eight or ten cows. You cannot afford to carry less. For these you 

 need a warm barn but one well ventilated. Cows need fresh air as much as 

 we do, but it must not come through cracks. As to the stall, I would put 

 in either the Hoard or Bidwell stall. This keeps the cows clean and gives 

 us pure milk. You cannot get clean milk without some sort of stanchion. 

 The old fashion stiff stanchion does fairly well, but I prefer the stall I 

 have named, where the cows are loose but are prevented from backing 

 and getting dirty. 



HANDLING CREAM AND MAKING BUTTER. 



BY W. A. ELLIS^ BRAIDWOOD. 



I think we are preaching better dairying with good results. The annual 

 loss sustained through the marketing of poor butter is simply enormous. 

 Outside of the creamery the principles of butter making are but little 

 understood. At our place we are improving from twenty years' experi- 

 ence and considerable study of the subject. I will treat my topic under 

 three heads. First, flavor; second, body or firmness; third, texture. 



Flavor is the most important of all, and is in these days a subject of 

 study. Flavor depends to a large extent upon the proper ripening of 

 cream. There are three ways to ripen cream. 



First, there is Spontaneous action, leaving it to nature. Good butter 

 is made in this way, but you cannot get uniformity from day to day by 

 this course. There are many conditions affecting flavor. Different germs 

 act differently and produce different results. This difficulty must be 

 overcome, and today we must control the situation, so we utilize the 

 starter. 



Second, the home made starter. This is made by ourselves. Take the 

 milk from a healthy cow, cool it first, then imt it in a temperature of 

 from 80 to 90 degrees. In 24 hours it will be fully ripened or sour, and 

 has a nice acid flavor. Take some skim milk and heat it to 1.50 degrees to 

 kill the bacteria and reduce the temperature to ()5 or 70 degrees, add 

 the sour milk just spoken of. and you will have a starter. Add this 

 starter to the cream and you get a uniformity of flavor and a nice sweet 

 aroma. Y^ou can use the starter for some time. Y^'ou can also make a 

 starter from buttermilk, but it will deteriorate before long. Remember 

 that the starter is the foundation on which we work. 



Third. We can purchase a commercial starter and this is done in the 

 creamery. It gives the same results, but the home made starter is satis- 

 factory for home dairying. 



Now as to firmness. Feed and breed have something to do with this, but 

 the_souring process which I ha^e described also has something to do with 

 producing solid butter. The proper use of proper starters is likely to give 

 firm butter. Keep the cream at a rather low temperature while ripening. 

 Seventy-five degrees is too high. Sixty degrees is much better. At the 

 last temperature named the butter will be much firmer, even if you can 



