416 



BRITISH HUSBANDRY. 



[Ch. XXXVIL 



it is generally thought must be equalled to about 70° to 75° of Fahrenheit 

 before the latter can be separated from the milk: wliich is consequently the 

 common practice. This is done by one person gradually pouring a small 

 quantity of warm water into it while another is churning; for if the work 

 be carried on while too cold, the milk is said to rise in the churn, air- 

 bubbles are thrown up with a rattling noise, and the milk becomes pale ; 

 ^vhereas, if conducted at a proper heat, it does not swell, but is easily 

 worked, and remains at the proper straw colour. A thermometer, it may 

 therefore be imagined, should always be hung up in every dairy, and in- 

 deed this has been uniformly insisted on by every writer whom we ever recol- 

 lect to have treated on the subject ; yet, strange to say, it is an instrument 

 seldom seen in one of them : the only scale which the dairy-maid knows is 

 at her fingers' ends ; and although she invariably trusts to her hand for 

 trying the heat, it is yet surprising with what correctness she usually judges*. 

 Practice, they say, makes perfect ; and it is astonishing with what accuracy 

 many operations, which are supposed by theorists to demand the aid of 

 science, are performed through experience by the merest clodpoles. This, 

 liowever, must not be construed into an approval of the want of rule ; for, 

 notwithstanding the accuracy which experience may produce, it is not to 

 be compared with that denoted by scientific experiment, nor can it be ac- 

 quired without great loss of time, which might otherwise be avoided. 



Tlie whole milk, as well as the cream when churned separately, must 

 become sour before it is churned ; but this must be effected merely by the 

 state of the atmosphere, or by being kept exposed to the fire in order to 

 bring on fermentation; it is therefore kept in a large vat, or tub, until the 

 milk is turned into curd, or lapper, and if that remains undisturbed, the 



butter obtained from one gallon of cream in each experiment ; and the comparative qua- 

 lities of the different specimens of butter: — 



The butter produced in the first experiment was of the very best quality, being rich, 

 firm, and well tasted. 



The second experiment yielded a butter of a good quality, and not perceptibly inferior 

 to the former. 



The third experiment was of a good quality, but of inferior consistency. 



The fourth experiment produced a soft and spongy butter. 



The fifth experiment was decidedly inferior in every respect to any of the former ex- 

 periments. 



Experiments on the same subject by Mr. John Ballantyne, of Edinburgh, went to 

 nearly the same effect in point of produce and quality ; but the time of churning at 

 similar degrees of temperature was much shorter. 



From all these trials it should appear that cream should not be churned at a higher 

 temperature than 05°, and that the best temperature at which to commence the opera- 

 tion is fiom 50° to 55°, for it will gradually rise full four degrees during the operation. 

 If, on the contrary, it should be under 50°, the labour will be increased without any pro- 

 portionate advantage; but the temperature may then be increased by a small quantity of 

 warm water. 



* A trifling want of uniformity in the degree of heat may, however, occasion a consi- 

 derable diflerence of time in the completion of the act of churning, as will appear from 



