liG 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



a strong flavor, oujjht to I)e avoided, for it is inju- 

 rious to the flavor of tlie butter. In the spriiifj, 

 every dairyman should feed his cows with a little 

 ineal and water, every day, for two or three weeks 

 before they come into milking-, and from that time 

 until they can gel a good supply of grass. This 

 not only improves the condition of the cows but 

 greatly increases the quantity of butter, and im- 

 proves its quality. 



Dairymen should never undertake to keep more 

 oows than they have plenty of feed for. Twenty 

 cows, well fed, will yield much greater profit than 

 forty poorly kept. Every farmer should be very 

 particular to select such cows as give the richest 

 milk and that which will make good yellow butter. 

 Every one knows it is no more expensive to keep 

 good cows than it is to keep poor ones. 



To have good cows and plenty of good feed, 

 pure water, comfortable barns in winter, where 

 they can be kept dry and warm, and good clean 

 places for them in the summer, is the first step 

 toward carrying on the dairy business successfully. 



Every dairyman siiould supply himself with a 

 good convenient dairy-house, which is used for no 

 other purpose, in the season for making butter; this 

 is very important. For that purpose alone, the best 

 and cheapest plan that I have ever seen, is to build 

 of stone, laid in lime mortar. This almost every 

 ingenious farmer can do within his own means. It 

 should be placed in some convenient spot, if possi- 

 ble under the shade of some large trees, where 

 there is good circulation of air, and if convenient, 

 where a good stream of water can be carried into 

 it, as high as the upper shelves; then if you wish 

 to fix your milk-i'oom so that you can set the pans 

 of milk in water, in the iiottest weather, it can be 

 done with little extra expense; and it will greatly 

 improve the quantity and qualify of the butter. It 

 is done by making the shelves of good boards, and 

 having the ends well secured from expansion or 

 contraction , by putting good wide cleats at each end, 

 and then put a strip of board all round the edge of 

 the shelves; have them placed one above another 

 around the milk-room, and let the water in at the 

 top of one end and carry it to the other end, then 

 let it down to the other shelf by a small lead pipe, 

 and so let it pass back and forward through the 

 whole, and pass off at the bottom. 



The shelves should bo placed at a good distance 

 apart, and out from the wall so that the air can cir- 

 culate around and between them. The cream 

 will rise much better than it will in confined 

 air. The dairy-room should be well ventilated, so 

 that it can be aired at pleasure, and it should be 

 kept thoroughly cleansed, so there will be no un- 

 pleasant smell about the milk room. It should be 

 kept as sweet and clean as any lady's parlor. 



If milk is kept in cellars where there are decayed 

 vegetables, and old cider-banels, or filth of any 

 kind, it injures the butter very much. In the first 

 place there will not be so much cream before the 

 milk will sour, and what does rise is of an inferior 

 quality. 



The cream should be skimmed off while the milk 

 is sweet, and cate should be taken to drain off the 

 milk from the cream when it is skimmed, for if it 

 is allowed to sour and go to curd it will remain in 

 the butter, in little white streaks, and render it 

 very unsaleable. Cream should be churned while 

 it is sweet and cool; then the butter will come 

 hard, and the butter-milk can be extracted witii 



much less trouble than when it comes soft. After 

 tiie butter comes the butter-milk should be turned 

 off and cold water should be put in the churn and 

 churned a little to take the butter-milk from the 

 butter. The butter-milk should be got out with as 

 little working as possible. If butter is worked too 

 much, it breaks the grain and makes it greasy, and 

 it sticks to the knife when it is cut; and it also de- 

 stroys the flavor. The butter-milk may be squeezed 

 and spatted out instead of working with a machine 

 that cuts and breaks the grain and injures the 

 quality. After washing the butter in the water, it 

 should be washed in good strong brine, that takes 

 the water all out from the butter. If water is left in 

 the butter it will turn it white, where the drops 

 stand. 



Butter should not be too highly salted for this 

 market. One pound of salt and four ounces of pul- 

 verized loaf sugar to sixteen pounds of butter is 

 enough, if the butter-milk is all out, which it should 

 be before salting. If the butter-milk is left in, it 

 will immediately sour, and injure the flavor and 

 quality of the butter. If butter is to be kept over 

 suiTimer, it is not advisable to put in the sugar; but 

 if it is to be used within a few weeks, it adds 

 much to the flavor of the butter. The best salt for 

 butter is Turks Island, and it should be well 

 washed and well dried, and then ground. In a 

 neighborhood where there are several dairymen, 

 that want salt for butter, they can get their salt all 

 ready at the saine time, and appoint some day and 

 notify the miller and have it ground all at once. — 

 Then they will avoid any mixture of meal or flour, 

 which would be injurious to the butter. 



After the butter is salted it should be set in a 

 cool place and stand twenty-four hours, and then 

 worked over lightly, and packed solid into ihe tub. 

 You should be very particular to have the butter 

 packed very tight in the tub, as it keeps much bet- 

 ter and looks and tastes much superior to that 

 packed loosely. It has been the practice of some 

 dairy-women to put salt between the layers; this 

 should not be done; it only injures the butter. 

 When you have not butter enough to fill the tub at 

 a tin\e, it is better to keep a large tub of ni(.'e brine, 

 made by boiling a quantity of salt in water, having 

 more salt than will dissolve; then pour it off and 

 let it settle perfectly clear, and put into your large 

 tub with the undissolved salt. Wiicn your butter 

 is ready for packing, drop it into the tub of pickle 

 and let it remain until you have enough to fill your 

 tub at once. Then the tub should be filled within 

 three-fourths of an inch of the top; have a cloth cut 

 to fit the inside of the tul) to cover the Imtter; be 

 careful not to have it come over the edge, for if it 

 does, it will draw all the pickle out of the butter, 

 which will cause it to grow rancid. 



As soon as the tub is filled with butter, and the 

 cloth well fitted on, cover it with fine salt, with a 

 little water mixed enough to make a hard crust. 

 The tub should be filled up to the cover with this, 

 and then have the cover put on tight and kept on, 

 and this will exclude the air from the butter and 

 keep it perfectly sweet. There should be a bench, 

 set at least one foot high, and one or two feet from 

 the wall, to set the tubs of butter on, where they 

 can be kept dry and clean. If the tubs are allowed 

 to stand on the bottom of the cellar, they will be- 

 come more or less dirty and mould;,', which injures 

 their appearance very much. 



The tubs should be made of spruce or white ash 



