232 THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



is the result in one mode of raising the cream. Every variation in the mode of creaming 

 milk varies the quantity required for a given weight of butter. The more refrigeration there 

 is used, the more cream for a pound of butter, because in the cold processes the milk is less 

 perfectly separated from the cream. When raised at a high temperature, as when the milk 

 is scalded before setting, the separation of the cream is very complete. The cream is then 

 almost pure butter, and it takes but a little more than a pound of cream for one pound of 

 butter. When raised in the open air at 60, the bulk of cream is between the extremes. 

 Thus it will be seen that the value of cream is a very indefinite quantity. It depends 

 altogether upon how much milk goes with it, and this, in turn, depends upon the manner of 

 raising and skimming. People are quite prone to speak of cream as if it was a single and 

 uniform substance, composed only of the fat globules of the milk; but we never, or very 

 seldom indeed, get it in such a state, it being always more or less mixed with milk. Cream 

 varies also in its value for butter production, on account of the breed of cows from which it 

 is obtained. Derived from Jersey milk, its separation from the liquid part of the milk is 

 very complete, by reason of the very large size of its cream globules, which come to the 

 surface quickly, and with less liquid adhering to them. Then cream from Ayrshire milk is 

 usually very compact, being composed of large and small globules mixed, the smaller ones 

 filling in and occupying the spaces between the larger ones, just as small potatoes or small 

 apples fill in between larger ones, and give more weight to a given bulk than if measured 

 separately. In one case, 100 Ibs. of Jersey cream produced 56.8 Ibs. of butter, while another 

 sample of cream from common stock gave only 18.18, which is less than one-third of the 

 yield from the Jersey cream. These are extreme cases, but inside of these extremes the 

 value of cream for butter making is continually oscillating one way and the other, so that it 

 is impossible to give it any specific value either by weight or measure. 



There are some curious things about cream not well understood, which stand in the way 

 of making any definite inferences from its bulk or weight. Two samples of cream, showing 

 by exact analysis the same percentage of fat, are liable upon churning to yield very unequal 

 quantities of butter. This is so generally true that there would be no more reliance upon a 

 chemical analysis of cream to determine its value for butter than there would be upon 

 estimating it by its bulk. Neither will an analysis of a sample of milk afford anything more 

 than a vague and uncertain indication of the percentage of cream which will rise on it, or of 

 the butter it is capable of producing. It is as useless to analyze milk with a view to finding 

 out how much butter it would make, or how much cream would rise on it, as it would be to 

 analyze a soil to find out how much grain it would produce. The uncertainties which are 

 thus seen to attach to cream suggest very forcibly that the percentage which may rise upon 

 any particular specimen of milk can be no certain indication of the capacity of that milk for 

 producing butter. The variations in the butter product from a given percentage of cream 

 have been found in individual cases to vary from 300 per cent, down to nothing that is, 

 the product of butter from a given percentage of cream upon two samples of milk may be 

 alike, or one may be three times as great as the other. In the case of the mixed milk from 

 any considerable number of cows, these individual idiosyncrasies balance each other, and give 

 a pretty uniform result. Dairymen are sometimes advised to test their cows capacity for 

 butter making, by setting their milk separately and noting the percentage of cream which 

 rises on each, and to reject those which give a small depth of cream; but such a course might 

 drop out the best butter cow in the dairy. The cream or milk should be churned, and the 

 comparison made between the butter products instead of the cream. The lack of uniformity 

 in the value of cream is well indicated by the variations in its specific gravity. Hardly any 

 two observers make it alike. Thus, with water at 1,000 as a standard, Berzelius made the 

 specific gravity of cream 1,024.4; Dr. Voelcker, 1,012 to 1,019; Letheby, 1,013; Henneberg, 

 1,005.5; L. B. Arnold, 985; Dr. Sturtevant, 983. These widely differing results have 



