TREATMENT OF CREAM PREVIOUS TO THE CHURNING. 217 



buttermilk. If the buttermilk is better than the new 

 starter, the former should be used. As cream differs from 

 milk only in its greater fat content, and as fat does not 

 play any part in the nutrition of the lactic-acid bacteria, 

 there is no reason to prefer cream for milk as a starter. 

 Even if the cream does not give a proper new starter it is 

 generally used anyway, as it represents a certain quantity 

 of butter, and is not therefore fed to the hogs ; neither is 

 it churned separately, but is used as starter on the suppo- 

 sition that it is as it ought to be. 



On the basis of experience gained at Danish dairies 

 creamery-men are advised always to prepare new starter, 

 to compare it with the buttermilk, and to apply the one 

 that proves the better. The milk best adapted to prepara- 

 tion of starter should be found by comparative trials with 

 the milk from different patrons. The patron furnishing 

 this milk should then be asked to send the milk from only 

 fresh-milking, well-fed cows in a separate can; and this 

 should either be sent to the creamery while still warm or 

 subjected to a careful cooling on the farm. Immediately 

 on arrival of the milk at the creamery the butter-maker 

 should place it in one or two common cylindrical milk- 

 cans previously well cleaned with soda or lime and scalded 

 with boiling water; the milk is then cooled as rapidly as 

 possible in ice or cold water. A layer of cream will form 

 during the forenoon, and this is then removed with an 

 ordinary skimmer and poured into the sweet cream from 

 the centrifuge. The partly-skimmed milk is used for 

 preparation of starter.* The milk is now to be heated, 



*In my opinion separator skim-milk from a well-conducted 

 farm is to be preferred for such sweet, partly-skimmed milk. 

 G. G. 



