MUST YOU KEEP A COW 83 



a State College correspondence course in butter- 

 making. All of which worked not the slightest im- 

 provement. One day I took a leaf from the book of 

 that one of my lives that knows me as a maker 

 of cosmetic creams. I brought a thermometer home 

 from the factory. As long as cream is at the proper 

 temperature sixty degrees Fahrenheit for ours 

 it will churn like a breeze in seven to ten minutes 

 into good butter that will wash clean and, unlike 

 the farm butter of childhood's unhappy memory,, 

 stay sweet. 



Summer, when the cows are on pasture, is the 

 big butter season. Some farmers make it up in 

 quantity and salt it down for winter use. There 

 is a government pamphlet tells you how. But I 

 have never done it. Such butter may be fine eat- 

 ing but for me it is as they say hereabouts of cold 

 roast 'possum: it is supposed to be very good, but 

 nobody really knows because none is ever left over 

 to eat cold. 



Unlike the churning apparatus, the cream sep- 

 arator is a highly efficient piece of machinery. Here 

 we generally use it once a day. It takes about five 

 minutes to skim up to eight quarts. The skim- 

 milk can then be taken right back to the pigs or 

 chickens, the single quart of cream stowed in the 

 refrigerator. The machine is something of a prob- 

 lem to strip, clean, and re-assemble until you are 

 familiar with it; but it is far quicker and cleaner 



