rRODUCTS OF THE DAIRY. 409 



The first requisite should be cleanliness. This is necessary 

 through the whole process, from the milking of the cow to the 

 finishing stroke of the butter paddle. Any suspicion of un- 

 faithfulness here cloys the appetite at once, and makes one per- 

 fectly willing to eat his bread alone, rather than entertain a 

 doubt whether he is taking into his mouth what properly be- 

 longs to the barn yard or the scavenger. 



Closely connected with this is the absence of all foreign 

 taste in butter. Many housewives, who perhaps are not justly 

 chargeable with want of neatness, suffer this important arti- 

 cle of manufacture to go from under their hands sadly inter- 

 mixed with substances entirely foreign to the pure article. 

 Salt is one of these ; and, though necessary in certain propor- 

 tions, it will hardly do to adopt the principle in regard to its 

 use, that there cannot be too much of a good thing. We be- 

 lieve that one grand defect here is, that cream is kept too long, 

 especially in the summer season, before it is churned. Few arc 

 aware, perhaps, how soon putrefaction takes place in milk in the 

 hottest weather in summer. Undoubtedly the most satisfac- 

 tory results arc obtained where the churning is performed every 

 day. This is not practicable in many of our small dairies ; 

 but, where a tolerable article is expected, it should be done as 

 often as two or three times a week. Butter seems to possess, 

 in a remarkable degree, the power of appropriating to itself 

 the flavor of substances with which it is in near contact. One 

 of your committee, anxious to protect his butter from the fine 

 dust which is apt to settle upon it while on exhibition, procured 

 a box, which w&s to be covered with glass. The box, for want 

 of other material, was made of some sort of pine wood. In 

 order to test the matter, and ascertain whether the butter 

 would take any taste from the wood, a small lump was put upon 

 a plate and placed in the box. In twelve hours it had im- 

 bibed so much of the flavor of the wood as to become strong 

 and acrid even to the taste. In the examination made by the 

 committee to-day the importance of this matter was amply il- 

 lustrated — much too large a proportion of the lots exhibited 

 having a taint of some foreign substance. While on this point 

 it may bo well to say that the quality of cream is sometimes 

 materially damaged by being kept in a close vessel. This is 



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