BUTTER FACTORIES. 195 



ing water. These should be sunk in the earth in order to 

 secure a more uniform temperature of water, as well as for con- 

 venience in handling the milk. The vats should be about six 

 feet wide and from twelve to twenty feet long, arranged for a 

 depth of eighteen inches of water. There should be a constant 

 flow of water in and out of the vats, so as to secure a uniform 

 temperature of the milk, after it has been divested of its animal 

 heat. The milk is set in tin pails, eight inches in diameter, by 

 twenty inches long, each holding about fifteen quarts of milk. 

 As fast as the milk is delivered, the pails are filled to the depth 

 of seventeen inches and plunged in the water, care being taken 

 that the water comes up even with, or a little above, the milk 

 in the pails. The temperature of the water should be 48 

 degrees to 56 degrees. A vat holding 2,000 quarts of milk 

 should have a sufficient flow of water to divest the milk of its 

 animal heat in less than an hour. Milk that is cooled in this 

 way throws up its cream rapidly, and the even, uniform temper- 

 ature in rising the cream, operates favorably when it goes to the 

 churn, the butter coming solid and of good color. Good, pure 

 milk, when put in the vat in this way, will keep sweet for thirty- 

 six hours, even in the hottest weather. The cream should be 

 taken off before the milk sours, and it will nearly all come up 

 in twenty-four hours. The old notion that cream cannot rise 

 through a depth of milk greater than seven inches is an egre- 

 gious error. The Orange County dairymen get as much cream 

 when milk is set in this way as in shallow pans. 



The Orange County butter-makers have tried a great many 

 patent churns, and they find none they like so well as the old- 

 fashioned barrel dash churn. They use the barrel and half-size 

 dasher, and in churning put in about fifty quarts of cream. 

 This is diluted with water, by adding cold water in summer and 

 warm in winter, at the rate of sixteen to thirty quarts each 

 churning. 



The temperature of the cream in summer when the churns 

 are started is about sixty degrees, and in cold weather about 

 sixty-eight degrees. It requires, and it is preferred, that from 

 forty-five to sixty minutes be employed in churning, when the 

 butter should come solid and of a rich yellow color. It is then 

 taken from the churn and thoroughly washed in cold spring 

 water, and salted at the rate of eighteen ounces of salt and 



