72 ON THE DAIRY. 



should then be selected and the others disposed of for 

 beef or otherwise. The common period of a cow's 

 usefulness for milk, is about ten years, some proba- 

 bly much longer. No first rate cow should be sold 

 until the infirmities of age essentially impair her use- 

 fulness. In this way every farmer may have a stock 

 of first rate cows at a moderate cost. Another fact 

 to which allusion has often been made by writers on 

 this subject, but which does not seem to us to have 

 received sufficient attention, is to separate the butter 

 from all fluid. It is attended with much more diffi- 

 culty to separate oily substances from water or other 

 like fluids when they have been intimately mixed 

 than is usually conceived of. Butter should, there- 

 fore, be much more worked than it is. If butter 

 could be made perfectly free from butter-milk, and 

 properly salted with pure salt, in our opinion it might 

 be preserved in a cool place for any space of time re- 

 quired. Another subject of much importance, is, 

 that it be properly salted. For this purpose the salt 

 must be pure and be in a very fine powder, that it 

 may be intimately mixed, otherwise the butter will 

 not have that uniform appearance so much to be de- 

 sired, as the eye receives the first gratification when 

 a fine looking lump of butter is placed on the table 

 together with the smoking loaf. If the butter has the 

 right shade of uniform yellow, it will much increase 

 its sweet flavor. In connexion with the subject, we 

 must enjoin cleanliness in every part of the process. 

 The cow must have a clean and dry place to rest 

 herself after the labors of the day in grazing for her 

 food in dry pastures, fighting flies, &c. All vessels 



