AMERICAN- INSTITUTE. 155 



while if judiciously given it doe? not materially increase the deposit of fat. 

 It also increases the quantity, and improves the quality of the milk, while 

 roots and vegetables increase the quantity hut rather deteriorate the 

 quality. 



During the milking season the cows must he moved from the pasture- 

 field with great caution, to prevent over-heat of the system. That cannot 

 take place in any degree without the milk being unfavorably affected in a 

 corresponding ratio. And when they are in the heat of the sexual or copu- 

 lating fever, the milk should not be used in the dairy, or with that from 

 which butter for packing is to be made. For at such periods nature has 

 provided for a medical interruption of the secretion of the animal, and the 

 milk is greatly reduced in quantity, and in like measure improved in 

 quality. Indeed the abnormal heat produced in the udder is of itself 

 sufficient cause for rejecting the milk for butter making. In the fall where 

 the grass begins to fail, and loses its nutritive or milk producing elements, 

 there is nothing that can equal corn stalks aa a substitute. The corn 

 should be sown for the purpose. 



During the winter months the stock should be stabled or otherwise 

 sheltered from the severities of the weather for the night, and while they 

 feed. And the care and amount and kind of food must be so appointed 

 that they rather improve in condition and vigor than otherwise ; at least, 

 they must not be allowed to run down to poor flesh and weakness — for then, 

 no amount of attention and good nursing through the summer will restore 

 them to full milking capacities. The loss is irreparable for the season. 



A thorough and practical understanding of the next and last branches, 

 i. e., the treatment of the milk and the process of butter making, is much 

 much more difficult to obtain, because the knowledge is much more difficult 

 to obtain, because the knowledge is much more difficult to impart- With 

 all the rules that may be given, there must be superadded as conditions 

 for their successful application, the necessity for close and critical observa- 

 tion. For there are constantly arising circumstances to modify the most 

 of such which may be laid down in a general system. 



For depositing the milk when strained, the tin pail of the capacity of 

 about twelve quarts is preferable to any other kind of vessel. It is suffi- 

 ciently large to fulfill all the requirements in that particular ; while its su- 

 periority over the shallow pan — which is considerably used — is too palpa- 

 ble to admit of doubt. The following propositions in point, are sustained 

 by facts, the application or pertinency of which all who have ever made 

 butter, or who have been in a dairy with their eyes open to the every-day 

 phenomena therein, will readily apprehend, viz : that milk, in order to 

 realize from it the largest quantity and best quality of butter, must stand 

 in an atmosphere of a given temperature a specific length of time, in all 

 cases, in order to pei'fect it for the churn ; that natural or artificial causes, 

 either accelerating or retarding the processes of change in its elements from 

 that fixed standard, have their like certain results of deterioration, both in 

 the quality and the quantity of the butter produced ; that a givem quantity 



