No. 7. 



DificuUtj in Chwning Butter. 



209 



DifBculty iu Churning Butter. 



Mr. Cabinet, — Please to ask your folks, 

 ing:ead of writing so many things which we 

 know already — nnd some we don't want to 

 know — to turn their attention to the depart- 

 ment of female husbandry, and instruct us 

 a little in that. 



In the days of our grand-dames — as many 

 a legend tells us — when witches were almost 

 as numerous as cats, and quite as mischiev- 

 ous — riding broomsticks on tlieir errands of 

 mischief — the good housewife frequently en- 

 countered the greatest ditficulty from their 

 malicious interference with her household 

 affairs; unless her stable door and "that dear 

 cot her home," were protected by the potent 

 charm of an old horse-shoe, the horses manes 

 and tails would be twisted into cues — the 

 cows would either be sucked dry, or their 

 milk turned to blood — or when churned 

 would not make butter — her vinegar would 

 not stay in the barrel, nor her soap in the 

 tub — nor could she even supply its loss, un- 

 less she used the precaution to stir the soap 

 pot with a sassafras stick, top doivn. In 

 those perilous times stern necessity devised 

 many means to break the spell — to burn the 

 witch, or to douse her into scalding water 

 But to us who are young, this is mere matter 

 of history — fabulous history it would seem — 

 for no sooner did the people cease their ef- 

 forts to keej) the witches out, than they made 

 the discovery that there were none to get 

 in — oh pshaw! I sat down to inquire about 

 churning, and here is a homily on witchcraft. 



It is a fact unibrtunately too well known, 

 that in small dairies of one or two cows — 

 perhaps cows which have been milked for 

 several months — there is often much diffi- 

 culty experienced in churning the cream 

 into butter, especially in cold weather — 

 sometimes the cream is converted into a 

 thick froth, and will not break; at other 

 times the butter forms into small pellets re- 

 sembling fish eggs, and will not gather. 

 Now it is no trifle to have all the trouble 

 and labour of gathering the cream, and 

 churning a whole day — perhaps two or 

 three of them — and have to eat your buck- 

 wheat cakes without butter at last. Form- 

 erly it was only necessary to expel the 

 witch, and all was right; but now-a-days, 

 there is no witch, and we don't know what 

 to do. 



One thinks her cow is too poor to churn for, 

 and exchanges her for one no better. Another 

 can't get butter because her cows are fed 

 on turnips or pumpkins. A third condemns 

 oats' straw as feed for cows — and who would 

 not agree with her in that — and some think 

 that even the oats themselves, ground either 



alone, or with corn, make inferior butter or 

 none at all. 



Now all this may, or may not be so. We 

 think there is some difference in cows, and 

 in cow-feed too; for we see a jrreat differ- 

 ence between the milk of diflerent cows, 

 and of the same cows under different keep- 

 ing. Still, as the complaint seems only to 

 prevail in winter, we think that winter may 

 have something to do with it — especially as 

 our own cream will churn readily one week, 

 and hardly at all another— cows and food 

 the same. 



Now what do your Cabinet folks say to 

 this ? you often talk about chemistry. Now 

 can't you tell us what is the chemical pro- 

 cess of converting cream into butter — what 

 constitutes the difference between the two; 

 and what are the essential conditions neces- 

 sary to affect the change.' Do tell us where 

 the cream-pot should be kept in cold wea- 

 ther? How it should be stirred and man- 

 aged? What put into it? How the churn 

 should be prepared, &c., &c. 



Do tell us all about it, and oblige a whole 

 heap of 



Young Wives, 



It would afford the editor no small gratification, if 

 he were able to remove a difficulty, which has from 

 time immemorial, for aught we know, perplexed and 

 annoyed, not only "heaps of Young Wives," but also 

 any quantity of old ones, who had thought that in 

 most matters they had cut their wisdom teeth. We 

 must, however, leave this to wiser people, and hope 

 some of our readers will be able to render assistance 

 in the premises. There is an excellent article under 

 the head of Butter, in the Farmer's Encyclopedia, 

 which is too long for the Cabinet, and to which we 

 can only refer. We can very well sympathise with 

 those who are worried in this way, having many a 

 time watched with no little chagrin, the prolonged and 

 fruitless labours at the churn, for six or eight, or even 

 twelve hours; and then, after all, if the buckwheat 

 cakes were not eaten dry, they might as well have 

 been, for the stuff that was produced when the butter 

 did come, if indeed it came at all, was not worthy of 

 the name of butter, and hardly that of decent grease. 

 Perhaps there is no better plan for having good butter 

 in winter, and little difficulty in the churning of it, 

 than to feed the cows well with Indian meal and 

 green food, as carrots, turnips, potatoes, &c., and to 

 keep the milk or cream at a moderate temperature. A 

 friend in Jersey, and by the way, an excellent house- 

 keeper, remarked to us a few weeks ago, that she kept 

 her milk and cream during the winter, altogether in a 

 closet in the kitchen: thus at a constant temperature, 

 from 5.5° to 05°, it readily soured, and she had no diffi. 

 culty in getting her butter: and the quality of it, when 

 she Aoes get it, ourselves are particularly fond of test- 

 ing. This plan of keeping the njilk warm, is we be. 

 lieve, practised to a very considerable extent, by our 

 large and nice dairy people on this side the Delaware. 

 -Ed. 



