304 A LIFE'S WORK IN IRELAND. 



it is. Working, more or less, breaks up the texture. 

 Thus a finer and fresher quality and appearance are got 

 with little -working, provided all the buttermilk is got 

 rid of. 



Compared with the ordinary way of making up 

 butter, getting it together in the churn in lumps, which, 

 of course, enclose much buttermilk, and then working 

 out the buttermilk with a wooden dish or the dairy- 

 maid's knuckles — the saving of labour was very great. 

 From first to last the hand never touched the butter at 

 all. The labour used was a minimum, much less than 

 in the common way of butter-making. 



Tbe exception I have mentioned as a defect of this 

 system is, that the butter was not washed with water at 

 all. All was trusted to the butter- working machine 

 squeezing out the buttermilk. I think this is undesir- 

 able. Spring water can do the butter no harm. The 

 French system hereafter mentioned, by which Mr. 

 Jenkins tells us in his article in the last number of the 

 Journal, the splendid Normandy butter is made, that 

 sells in Paris for 3s. per lb., and nearly as dear at Rio 

 Janeiro salted or in tins, is much the same as that I 

 have just described. By the French system, when the 

 butter has just come in these fine grains, the buttermilk 

 is drawn off by the vent-hole through a sieve, the dairy- 

 maid holding the spiggot lightly in the vent, so as to 

 let little butter escape. Spring water is then poured in 

 and drawn off in the same way after a few turns of the 

 churn. This is done six or eight times, till the water 

 comes away quite clear, with no trace of buttermilk. 

 It is thought in this way, the butter being in fine grains 

 and no lumps to hold buttermilk in them, the butter- 

 milk is quite washed out. The only object of using 



