DAIRYING INTBBBST8. 187 



are then taken out, cooled, and sealed or corked tightly, in 

 which state, and in a temperature of 55 degrees or lower, 

 it remains good for an indefinite time. 



BUTTER MAKING. Setting the milk for cream, and 

 converting the cream into butter by hand labor, is still 

 followed as a process ; and for making home supplies 

 the process answers very well. But for business purposes, 

 and where the product has to be sold in competition with 

 factory made and creamery butter, the hand made process 

 suffers badly. To carry it out in a satisfactory manner, 

 a real dairy room is necessary, with entrance and windows 

 so arranged that flies and other winged abominations 

 cannot enter. They are fearfully mischievous when they 

 reach milk which is set in shallow pans. Coolness and 

 semi-darkness aid in the rising of the cream, which is 

 then skimmed off, and, if sufficient in quantity, may be 

 converted into butter at once, with the aid of some one of 

 the many churns available for this branch of work. Or 

 the cream may be held back for one, two, or more days, to 

 " ripen/' or until there is enough for a churning. 



Ripening the Cream. To get the rich flavor which is 

 in request to a lesser or greater extent in all butters, except 

 the really sweet, unsalted, made direct from new milk, 

 three agencies or generators of fermentation are brought 

 into action. They are : Buttermilk from a previous churning, 

 cream already ripened, or a special ferment as a starter. 

 Before butter factories were thought of, the first two agencies 

 were in use in extensive, well conducted dairies. And butter 

 often went wrong then, as it does still. There is much room 

 for improvement in order to start and complete the bacterial 

 action or souring, possibly more so than at any previous time 

 in all the experiences of dairying. Skill comes in at every 

 point of the operations of fermentation, skill in selecting, 

 regulating and working the flavor as required. In this, 

 the effect of lower temperature is very marked; 50 degrees 

 Fahrenheit seems the point of safety at which ferment 

 material should be stored, whether it be butter-milk, cream, 

 or special preparation, and then churning at something like 

 the same temperature, after ripening, which may require from 

 6 to 24 hours, according to the skill and method of the 



