METHODS OF MANUFACTURE. 103 



some things back of my philosophy of which I had not yet 

 even dreamed. 



For some years past my milk, in the winter season, has 

 been scalded before setting for the cream to rise ; but this 

 year I am trying to save that labor, and still make as good 

 butter as before, and the present indications are that the 

 experiment will be successful. So I am entirely unprepared 

 to lay down a set of unvarying rules for all dairymen to fol- 

 low, for there are so many varying conditions of which I could 

 have no knowledge, and over which I could have no control 

 that would effect results in different cases, that a rule which 

 might work well with one, might entirely fail with another. 



Good butter and good cheese may be made by several 

 different methods. The milk may be set in large or in small 

 pans, in deep or in shallow vessels, in warm or in cold air. 

 Cream may be churned in five minutes, or in an hour. The 

 butter may be washed, or .it may be salted without washing, 

 it may be worked by hand or with paddles, and still be good. 

 Under certain conditions, one method may be vastly better than 

 another. One kind of cream may possibly be as well churned 

 in ten minutes as another kind would be in forty minutes. 



There are, however, fundamental principles which underlie 

 the usual methods of manipulating dairy products, which every 

 dairyman should, if possible, understand. It is not enough 

 to know that a certain kind of work, done in a certain way, 

 proved successful once or twice, or a hundred times, if it has 

 ever, even in a single instance, failed, for the one failure 

 proves that there is something about it that we do not fully 

 understand. 



Under ordinary conditions, cream churned for a half-hour 

 will reward the operator by changing to butter, but it does 

 not always do so. I think there are very few farmers, who 

 have made butter for a term of years, who cannot recall at 

 least one tedious season at the churn, and I doubt not that 

 some of you can remember several such unpleasant experi- 

 ences. These long, tiresome spells at the churn-dasher have 

 made inventors of a great many farmers' boys. They have 

 resolved that, when they become men, they would invent some 

 sort of a contrivance by which the butter should be made to 

 come in spite of the witches. 



