DAIRY HUSBANDRY. THE DAIRIES OF HOLSTEIN. 31 



generally commenci.ig at lour, and lasting two hours. Each girl marks her own 

 cows, by tying a particular colored ribbon around their tails ; and in some places 

 each milker carries a string, on which a knot is made for every cow that is 

 milked, to prevent any from being forgotten. The fields are large, and often at 

 a great distance from the dairy, but the milk is safely and easily transported by 

 means of a long, low, four-wheeled one-horse wagon, in the side-bars of which 

 strong iron hooks are inserted at such distances that the milk-pails, containin"^ 

 from thirty to forty quarts each, may swing free of each other ; and these, 

 though tilled nearly to the brim, are prevented spilling by merely having thia 

 pieces of wood, about the size of a dinner-plate, floating on the surface. The 

 milk, when brought to the dairy, is immediately strained through a hair-sieve 

 into the vessels placed to receive it. These vessels are of various materials: 

 they may be of wood, earthenware, copper tinned, zinc, cast-iron lined with a 

 China-like composition, or glass. 



In order to secure butter of a first-rate quality, the cream is removed from the 

 milk before any acidity is perceptible, and it has been found that a cellar tempera- 

 ture of from 60° to 62° Fahrenheit is the most favorable, allowing a complete dis- 

 severment of the cream in thirty si.K hours ; whereas a greater degree of warmth, 

 while it quickens the separation, still more hastens the souring process, which 

 injures both the quantity and quality of butter. In a cold temperature the sepa- 

 ration is effected much more slowly, so that forty-eight and even sixty hours may 

 be required ; this, however, is the longest period which can be given without the 

 risk of imparting a rank, unpleasant flavor to the butter. The first signs of acidi- 

 ty in milk are a very slight wrinkling of the cream, and a scarcely perceptible 

 acid taste. The moment this is observed, the skimming commences, even if the 

 milk have stood but twenty-four hours. The cream is poured through a hair-sieve 

 (which is kept for the purpose and never employed in straining the new milk), 

 into large barrels, containing about two hundred and forty quarts each, in which 

 it remains until it is sufficiently sour, being stirred at intervals to prevent its be- 

 coming cheesy. The next object of the dairy-woman's skill is the degree of 

 warmth or coolness which must be imparted in order to secure good butter. 



In warm weather the churn is rinsed Avith the coldest water, in which a piece 

 of pure ice is often thrown, and sometimes, though more rarely, cold spring wa- 

 ter is added to the cream about to be churned, which operation is then always 

 performed either very early in the morning or late in the evening. In cold weath- 

 er, on the contrary, warm water is applied both to rinsing the chum, and to the 

 cream itself. 



The churning being completed, the butter is taken off by means of a large 

 wooden ladle, and carried in a tub directly to the butter-celJar, where it is cast 

 into a large trough, hollowed out of the trunk of an oak or beech, very smoothly 

 polished inside, and provided with a plug-hole at the lower extremity, beneath 

 v/hich a small tub is placed to receive the expressed milk. There the butter is 

 slightly worked, and salted with the purest salt, then moulded with a wooden 

 ladle into a mass at the upper end of the trough, and left for some hours to 

 soak and drain. In the evening it is thoroughly kneaded and beaten, or rather 

 slapped, the dairy-maid repeatedly lifting a piece of from three to four pounds,. 

 and slapping it with force against the trough, so as to beat out all the milky par- 

 ticles; and thus iump after lump being freed from extraneous matter, the whcjle 

 mass is spread out, receives its full proportion of sail, about an ounce and one- 

 eighth per pound, which is worked with the utmost care equally through it, and 

 agaia moulded into one compact mass. The butter in Holstein is scarcely ever 

 washed, as water is believed to rob it of its richness and fiavor and to be unfa- 

 vorable to its preservation. 



When a quantity is ready, sufficient to fill a cask, the several churnings are 

 once more kneaded through, a very little fresh salt added, and the butter is 

 packed in a barrel made of red beech-wood, water-tight, which has been pre- 

 pared by careful washing and rubbing on the inside with salt. Great care is 

 taken that no tpace shall be left either between I lie layers of butter, or the sides 

 of the cask. In large dairies a cask is never becun to be filled until it can be 

 ccxnpleted, as thus alone the butter can be exactly of the same ilavor and color 

 throughout. The qualities uf the excellent butter on which the Uolsteiner prides 

 himself, are_^rsi, a fine, even, yellow color, neither pale nor orange-tinted ; second' 



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