THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VIII. 471 



and it is folly not to make every effort to improve the quality of the cream 

 brought to the creamery, and consequently the quality of the butter 

 made from the cream. It is certain that the hand separator system has 

 a great many faults. It is equally certain that its advantages appeal to 

 the farmer much more than its disadvantages, and this being the case, the 

 farmers will continue to buy and use hand separators and the butter 

 makers and creamery operators will be compelled to make the best of 

 the situation; and the best of the situation will not be obtained by 

 attempting to induce the farmers to discard the separators. 



A number of butter makers complain that the agents for hand sepa- 

 rators have been asserting that their particular machine does not need 

 washing more than once a week. The dairy commissioner will be very 

 glad to assist in combating this statement wherever it is made. The 

 laws of this state require that the patron shall not send to the creamery 

 "any unclean, impure, unhealthy milk or cream" (section 4989), and cer- 

 tainly cream from a separator that is not washed after each time it is 

 used, could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be called either clean, 

 or pure, or healthy. The dairy commissioner does not believe that any 

 manufacturer of separators desires to have his agents use this kind of 

 an argument in order to sell the machines, and if creamerymen will report 

 such cases to the dairy commissioner's office, the matter will be taken 

 up with the employers of these agents with the belief that the offending 

 agent will be better controlled by his employer thereafter. Another fault 

 of the hand separator system, which ought to be easily remedied, is the 

 fact that most of the hand separator cream is not so rich as it should be. 

 The reports made to this office indicate that hand separator cream ranges 

 all the way from twelve per cent up. The butter maker should insist 

 that the hand separator cream which comes to him should test above 

 thirty-five per cent. There will be no disadvantage in this to the farmer, 

 because his machine will skim as closely when skimming a heavy cream 

 as it will when skimming a lighter cream. He will also save in trans- 

 portation and have more of his product left at home. The butter maker 

 will have an advantage with the heavier cream, for the reason, that the 

 acid in the cream is found in the milk serum and not in the butter fat; 

 hence, there will be less of an "undesirable starter" in a forty per cent 

 cream than in a twenty per cent cream, and he will be able to dilute the 

 heavier cream with his own better starter and the result will be a better 

 grade of butter. 



The butter maker should insist that the farmer wash his separator 

 after each time it is used, because otherwise the cream will become 

 inoculated with bacteria from the slime which is found in every 

 separator. 



The butter maker should insist, where it is at all possible, that the 

 cream be delivered to the factory every day, for the reason that under 

 the best possible farm conditions, the cream necessarily deteriorates in 

 quality from the time it is separated from the milk. 



The butter maker should insist that the farmer skim thirty-five or 

 forty per cent cream, for the reason that he will be able to use his 

 prepared starter to the best advantage. 



