No. 4.] CREAMERY EXPERIENCE. 191 



Creamert Experience. 



BY MR. I>. B. DUNHAM, ASHFIELD. 



My experience in the manufacture of butter dates back to 

 the year 1874, in Franklin County, N. Y., at which time 

 the so-called creameries were termed butter factories, the 

 milk being delivered at the factory and there set in open 

 shallow pans, holding twelve hundred pounds each. I con- 

 tinued making Ijutter by this system until 1880, when I re- 

 moved to Hatfield, Mass., to take charge of the first creamery 

 in New England, conducted on the cream-gathering plan, 

 and made the first churning Nov. 25, 1880. 



In the first place, to make a first-class article, special 

 attention must be paid to the care of the milk at the dairy, 

 and cleanliness on the part of the producers and collectors is 

 as absolutely necessary as with the butter-maker. I would 

 like to say right here that especial credit is due the patrons 

 of the Ashfield Creamery along this line. I maintain that 

 all cream and butter receptacles and the floors in a creamery 

 should be thoroughly cleansed and kept sweet, and never 

 neglected even for a single day, as is the case in many 

 creameries. In order that the floors may be kept perfectly 

 sweet and clean, the building should be built with good 

 sewerage and drainage, and proper appliances to conduct all 

 buttermilk and drippings off into the sewer. When the 

 floors are allowed to get wet and remain so, the building 

 will in a short time become musty, and consequently afiect 

 the cream. 



Cream must be brought in sweet, and then, to ripen it, 

 brought slowly up to a certain temperature and held there 

 thirty-six hours, instead of souring it by using the so-called 

 starter, such as sour buttermilk and old cream. Then cream 

 should be stirred frequently and the whipped cream re- 



