TREATMENT OF NEW CASKS. 325 



then, when cold, again scoured and rinsed, for which 

 the most judicious dairymen use milk instead of water, 

 and they are then placed to dry in the air. They are 

 fit for use only when everything has been done in the 

 most careful manner. 



But new butter-casks require still more particular and 

 careful treatment before they can be filled with butter 

 without fear of injury. They are got ready for pack- 

 ing in several different ways. Some dairymen let them 

 lie in pure water a whole summer and winter long, and 

 wash them out in lye, and then treat them just as they 

 do those that have been used. Others, however, who 

 give the new casks the preference over the old, but 

 who cannot wait for the soaking in lye over summer 

 and winter, treat them in the following manner: They 

 prepare a lye of good American potash, which generally 

 contains the most alkali, in a cask holding some three 

 hundred quarts, taking a pound of potash to twenty 

 pounds of water. For a cask of the size named fifteen 

 pounds of potash are used, which is prepared by pour- 

 ing boiling water upon it and stirring constantly, add- 

 ing a little more water as the potash dissolves. With 

 this lye, which will be about five degrees strong by 

 Beaume's aerometer, the butter-barrels are entirely 

 filled. The barrels stand two hours filled with lye, and 

 are then emptied and exposed to the air to dry, without 

 being scoured out with water or milk. The lye may be 

 used again for other new barrels, even though a part 

 of its strength may be gone. Potash is added, from 

 time to time, to keep up the specified degree of strength. 

 A solution of fifteen pounds of coarsely-powdered alum 

 is prepared in about three hundred quarts of hot water, 

 in a vessel as large as the lye-cask. The butter-barrels 

 are also filled full of the solution of alum, and allowed 

 to stand twenty-four hours. This alum solution must 

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