500 Journal of Agriculture, Victoria. [10 Aug., 1918. 



TREATMENT OF CREAM. 



By J. J. RicTcetts, Dairy Supervisor. 



The quality of butter depends on the class of cream from which it is 

 made. ISTo farmer ever considers his cream inferior to that of his neigh- 

 bour, and very often the remark is made, '' I got only 35 per cent, and 

 my neighbour got 45 or 50 per cent, butter." This difference may usually 

 be traced to the running of the home separator. In a new separator 

 the cream screw is adjusted so that, if the regulated revolutions per 

 minute are maintained, a cream containing between 45 and 50 per cent, 

 of butter will be obtained. iSTot once, but scores of times, I have witnessed 

 a separator in action, and on inquiry been told that the handle was 

 making forty-five revolutions per minute, yet on timing them with a 

 watch, have found that the number was only forty, and sometimes it 

 has been as low as thirty-seven. The operator of a separator should 

 always have a watch hanging in front of him, so as to be able to check 

 the speed of the separator. Some machines are geared to forty-five and 

 some sixty revolutions per minute, and, if satisfactory results are to 

 follow, the correct speed should always be nuaintained. Too often the 

 farmer says, " I received 45 per cent, last week and only 38 per cent, 

 this week," and, without trying to find out the reason, blames the 

 factory manager. If the separator is geared to forty-five revolutions 

 per minute, and only forty are turned, it means that the driving wheel 

 makes five hundred less revolutions of the bowl. The farmer, in conse- 

 quence, gets a much larger yield of cream, but of a poorer quality in fat. 



The float in the separator regulates the supply of milk from the 

 receiving vat. If the stem on the float has been broken off and resoldered 

 the additional weight may be sufficient to sink the float down in the top 

 cover and allow a larger supply of milk into the machine than it can 

 deal with, so that a proportion is going through the separator and 

 leaving it only partly skimmed. At a dairy fann recently I looked 

 into the skim-milk tank, and noticed that the contents had a thick coating 

 of cream on it from the morning's separating. Another cause of the 

 variation in the results is that occasionally the cream screw may work 

 loose and almost fall out. Within the last few months I met with a case 

 of this kind, but it is not common. Where a large quantity of milk is 

 dealt with by means of a hand separator, the cream at first is of a good 

 consistency, but as the operator tires the turning becomes slower, and 

 though the return of cream increases in volume, there is a correspond- 

 ing falling off in quality. The worth of cows on a dairy farm are too 

 often gauged by the number of cans of cream — not by the quantity of 

 butter which the cream will produce. 



Another very common complaint of the farmer is the classification 

 of his cream as second grade. There are many factors which affect the 

 quality of cream, such as insanitary cow sheds, badly ventilated dairies, 

 keeping small quantities of cream too long, water supply, fodder, &c. 



Water for cows should, if possible, be provided from a trough supplied 

 by a windmill and ball tap. This insures the trough always being full. 

 Water coming from black puggy soil often carries an organism which 



