164 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 3 



or search. But I would have that done when the 

 cream was about to be churned, and the milk 

 when ready to be coagulated lor cheese. If it is 

 strained when newly drawn ti-oni the cow, the 

 milk is hurt by auitation, and more exposed to the 

 pir than is necessary; and every chemist, as well 

 as every dairywoman, will attest, that the cream 

 always rises better when the milk has been least 

 ajrita'ted, and the troth raiseil in milking preserved. 

 The frolh raised on the milk by a good milker, 

 spreads over its sur)ace in the coolers (provided 

 the milk has not been much agitated,) and prolects 

 the aroma and most valuable qualities of the milk 

 irom the exhaling powers of the atmosphere; in 

 the game way that ale and porter throw up a sort 

 of cream, to protect themselves fi-om atmospheric 

 influence. On that accoimt, no skdful dairymaid 

 will either pass the milk through a search until it 

 has cast up the cream, nor yet use a pail in 

 taking the milk from the byre to the coolers. 

 The more milk is agitated, and especially when 

 warm from the cow, the sooner will it sour, and the 

 n^ore rancid will the cheese and butter become. 

 I would, therefore, have the milk emptied from 

 the milker's cog into the coolers, and searched 

 when about to be churned, or the curd set. One 

 fjf the advantages derived from young animals be- 

 ing suckled, instead of being fed from a dish, is, 

 that none of the aroma, or most volatile qualities 

 of the milk, are lost. 



Your correspondent also recommends, that the 

 milk shall, ' lohcn cool, be |)ut into sweet well-sea- 

 soned qaken cogs, keelers, or milk-pans.' Bpt, 

 xwith submission, I would recommend to |)lace the 

 pnilk in these coolers or stand-vats whenever it 

 comes trom the cow, and before it has awlcd. If 

 the milk remains in the milkers cofjs, which are 

 ,deep and narrow, till it cools, and is then turned 

 over into the milk-pans or coolers, it will be much 

 longer in cooling, and more agitated, than when 

 placed in the "coolers at once. And if it is put 

 into one vessel to cool, and into another to cast up 

 the cream, the injury will be still greater. The 

 fiooner that the milk is cooled after coming from 

 the cow, and the less it is agitated, the better. In 

 well-managed dairies, and when the weather is 

 hot, a small quantity of cold spring-water is put 

 into every one of the coolers, in order to cool the 

 milk the Sooner, and make it cast up the cream ; 

 (or when milk is strong and thick, it does not cast 

 up its cream so well as when it is thin, though the 

 cream of thick milk is richest. To obtain the 

 richest butter, the first drawn milk should be laid 

 aside, ami only the cream tliat rises first churned. 



The coolers may be made of oaken wood, or 

 earthern ware well leaded; or, what is still better, 

 they are now made of iron, well tinned in the in- 

 side, and with a sort of paint on the outside, that 

 prevents them from rusting. Mr. Bainl, a( Shotts 

 Iron-work, has manufactured great numbers of 

 these iron coolers, and they will soon supersede 

 the use of those made of wood. The iron ones 

 are only about the same price as those of wood, 

 and they are more casiiv cleaned, cool the milk 

 sooner, and will last 'far longer than wooden 

 dishes. If the paint on the outside, or tin within, 

 should fail, they can be replaced at a small ex- 

 pense. The milk ought to be placed about three, 

 or not more than four inches deep in the coolers, 

 and to stand from twenty-four to thirty-six hours, 

 if the whole cream is wished for. In the dairy 



districts, the milk is now generally placed into 

 stone cisterns, so large as to hold the whole milk- 

 ing; and the milk is let out by a trap-hole at the 

 bottom, and the cream received into a separate dish. 

 Bui these cisterns are not suited to small dairies. 



Your correspondent also directs, that the cream 

 should always be churned when it is [fresh.'' To 

 this I object ibr two reasons. First, it is only in 

 very large dairies that the cream can be churned 

 while it is li'esh, The milk must stand from twen- 

 ty-four to thirty-six hours in order to cast up the 

 cream, and filter that is removed from the milk, it 

 will be dithcult to keep the cr^am fresh twenty- 

 four hours more; so that to churn it fresh you can- 

 not gPt niorethan two days cream into the churn 

 at once; and in most of the dairies I saw in Aber- 

 ■deenshire, the cream of two days collection would 

 not fill a water-stoup; and not a. few of them 

 would require a churn still smaller. This would 

 greatly multiply th^ labor for no usefijl purpose. 

 But, second, if churning the cre^m fresh were 

 more easily accomplished than it is, it can serve no 

 good end to practice it, Sour cream makes as 

 good butter as that which is churned fresh. In 

 fact it is quite imjiossible to make butter from cream 

 till it is soured. You may commence the opera- 

 tion of churning Avhile the cream is freeh, but it 

 will, and must be sour before the butter is formed; 

 and it is better to allow it to sour in the natural 

 way, than to force on acidity by agitation in the 

 churn. Natural souring does no injury to the but- 

 ter, but improves it; while rendering the cream 

 hastily sour, by severe agitation, softens and in- 

 jures the butler by too much heat. In the im- 

 proved butter and butter-milk district round Glas- 

 gow, the whole milk as it comes from the cow is 

 churned, and the greatest pains are taken to have 

 the whole milk and cream soured and coagulated 

 (lappered, as they call it) some days before it is 

 churned; and the butter in that district, and made 

 in that way, is, ceteris paribus, equal to the best in 

 Britain. No dairy farmer in that district would, 

 on any account, admit a single pint of milk into 

 the churn that had not been soured and coagulated 

 lor some days. Neither would they allow it to 

 sour otherwise than in its natural course. When 

 fresh or sweet niilk is churned, an unnatural \'ei- 

 raentation is forced upon it, and that leads to putri- 

 dity much sooner than when the souring is 

 is brought on in the natural way. I agree with 

 the directions given in the communication referred 

 to, that milk yielded by cows during the two first 

 days after calving, should not be mixed with other 

 milk, or churned. The first drawn milk after the 

 cow has calved will, no doubt, yield three times as 

 much butter as ordinary milk. But that milk is 

 so much disposed to pulridit)^ that even tlie but- 

 ter extracted from it cannot be wholesome. And 

 it has such a high red colour as to render other 

 butter freckled when mixed vvith it. 



T surveyed last summer many dairies in the 

 counties of Dumfries and Cumberland, where vast 

 quantities of butter of the greatest celebrity is 

 made for the London market, and I did not find 

 one fiirmer who churned his cream fiesh. They 

 all collect their cream in earthern-ware [litchers. 

 or wooden coolers, ibr at least a week, and some 

 ten days and more. Some of them stir the cream 

 once a day or two ilays, with a wooden spurtle, to 

 keep it from clotting and throwing off the serum, 

 and others do not stir it at all. Either way may 



