THE DAIRY. 



219 



Temperature for Obtaining Cream. The best temperature for obtaining cream 

 is generally considered to be about 60 to 62, although some dairymen are of the opinion 

 that 58 is to be preferred. The butter- makers of Orange County, New York, whose dairy 

 products have been justly celebrated for their excellence, are of the opinion that the best 

 quality of butter can be made from cream that has been obtained at a temperature slightly 

 below 60. It should never be above 64. The milk serum becomes more and more dense 

 as the temperature sinks, and offers increased resistance to the rise of the butter globules. 

 Rapid cooling of the milk after milking will give a larger yield o_ cream within a reasonable 

 time, than slow cooling. The more quickly the milk cools from the sides and bottom of the 

 vessel in which it stands, and as a result the more promptly the currents through the milk 

 are checked, the sooner can the butter globules move freely and without interruption through 

 the mass to the surface. The cooling should not however go below a certain point, for as it 

 approaches 32 the serum becomes thicker and the rise of the butter globules is consequently 

 retarded. The temperature should be slightly higher in winter than in summer. Freezing 

 the milk or cream injures the quality of the butter. 



Quality of Cream at Diiferent Skimmings. As soon as the milk comes to rest 

 after leaving the udder, the small round butter globules that are held in suspension, or 

 floating in it, being lighter than the mass of cheesy and watery materials by which they are 

 surrounded, begin to rise to the surface. The largest globules, being comparatively the 

 lightest, rise to the top first, and form the first layer of cream. This will be cream of the 

 best quality which the milk can produce, since it is less filled with casein. The fatty globules 

 next smaller, rising a little more slowly, are more intermingled with other substances, and 

 bring them to the surface, while the very smallest globules, rising the slowest and last, are still 

 more encumbered with foreign substances, and will produce an inferior quality of cream and 

 butter. It will readily be seen that richest and most delicate cream, as well as the sweetest 

 and most fragrant butter, is that obtained by a first skimming only a few hours after the milk 

 is set. Of three skimmings at six, twelve, and eighteen hours after the milk is strained, that 

 first obtained will make more butter and that of a better quality than the second, and that 

 next obtained better than the third, and so on. It has already been stated that the milk 

 last drawn from the udder is the richest that the cow is capable of giving. If the last quart 

 or two of a milking is sc^ by itself, and the first cream that rises be taken off after standing 

 only five or six hours, it will produce the richest and highest-flavored butter the cow is 

 capable of producing, under like circumstances as to season and feed. 



Butter from Sweet, and Sour Cream. There has been considerable discussion in 

 the past among dairymen, as to whether butter should be made from sweet cream, or that 

 s ightly sour, each method having its advocates, who claim superior -ad vantages to be derived 

 from their own theory and practice over the other; viz.: a larger quantity and a finer quality 

 of butter. We believe no better butter can be produced, other conditions being equal, than 

 that taken from the milk while it is sweet, and churned before it has become sour. The 

 old time supposition that milk must sour before butter can be made from it, is erroneous, as 

 the more common practice of the sweet cream butter-makers of the present time has fully 

 demonstrated. Butter having a fine aroma can be made from cream but sliyhtly sour, as is 

 the custom in the Holstein dairies; but butter that is made from cream that is quite sour is 

 destitute of this peculiar aroma, and has the taste which the Holstein butter acquires after 

 being kept for some time. 



The Secretary of le Royal Agricultural Society of England, in his &quot;Hints on 

 butter-making,&quot; a pamphlet in which he refers to the shortcomings of his countrymen in 

 the manufacture of this dairy product, is of the opinion that one of the principal reasons for 

 so large a quantity of poor English butter being found in that market, is in permitting the 

 milk to be set so long that it becomes sour before being skimmed, or if it is skimmed sweet, 



