1782. NORFOLK, 247 



cloth flraincr or other cloth being walhed in 109. 

 clean cold water and wrung as dry as poffible ; BUTTZR. 

 a pound-lump of butter is placed in the bowl ; 

 and, with a ftroke of the hand proportioned to 

 the ftiffnefs of the butter, is beaten with the 

 cloth. As the pat of butter becomes flat and 

 thin, it is rolled up with the cloth, (by a kind 

 of dexterity which can only be acquired by 

 practice) and again beaten flat ; the dairy, 

 woman, every three or four flrokes, rolling up 

 either one fide or the other of the pat, and 

 moving it about in the bo'.vl to prevent its (lick- 

 ing. As the cloth fills with moifture (which 

 it extracts from the butter and imbibes in the 

 manner of a fpunge) it is wrung and re-wafhed 

 in clean cold water. Each pound of butter 

 requires in cool weather four or five minutes to 

 be beaten thoroughly, but two minutes are at 

 any time of effential fervice. 



In warm weather it is well to beat it two or 

 three times over ; as the coolnefs of the cloth 

 affifts in giving firmnefs to the butter *. 



* 1781, JULY 23. Weighed a lump of butter before 

 and after being beaten with a cloth. Before beating it 

 weighed lixteen ounces and a quarter ; after beating fifteen 

 ounces and three quarters ; juft half an ounce of butter- 

 milk and water being abforbed by the cloth, during about 

 three minutes beating. The cloJR was wrung equally hard 

 before and after the operation : a confiderable quantity of, 

 milk and water was wrung out of it. 



K 4 6. Putting 



