144 THE CREAMERY PATRON'S HANDBOOK. 



from the milking stalls, rapid cooling in tanks of water, to drive 

 out quickly the animal heat, clean washing of cans followed by 

 exposure of them to sun and air, etc., one general law, well observed, 

 will suffice. 



Aim to deliver the milk at the weigh-room of the creamery as clean, 

 as pure and as sweet as though every drop of it was to be used on your 

 own table! 



Can dirty milk, unstrained, turning sour, smothered, tainted from 

 stable exposure or otherwise, or carried in anything but sweet smelling 

 cans ever reach the weighcan of the creamery under that rule? 



Whether operated by an association of farmer shareholders, by a 

 stock company, by a corporation located in a distant city or by a locally 

 resident owner, the creamery is ever a co-operative institution. No 

 one patron can deliver milk below grade and natter himself that because 

 it passed the receiver, he is thereby the gainer. Tis true he has gained 

 temporarily what is lost by his more careful neighbors, for he has lowered 

 the quality of their product to his own level, but it is not written that a 

 man shall continue to prosper at the expense of others indefinitely. 



Let every milk can stand on its own bottom. Let every patron feel 

 that in the chain of association for the production of good butter, he forms 

 no weak link, but equally with his neighbors stands steadfast and true, 

 giving of his best and asking equal worth of every other. The organi- 

 zation is not perfect if any part is weak or wanting, and thus the milk 

 producer must do his full share toward the attainment of that perfect re- 

 sult a market for the highest grade butter through a well managed cream- 

 ery well patronized by well satisfied intelligent patrons. 



Do what the buttermaker may, the purity of the butter will never 

 rise above the purity of its source, therefore the better the milk the better 

 the butter. Every hour every minute, the milk is exposed in stables, 

 barns or other surroundings laden with flavor destroying taints, or exposed 

 at temperatures above sixty degrees, its quality is impaired for the mak- 

 ing of the best grade of butter. Every time it is closed tightly into the 

 creamery can while warm, or the warm morning's milking is poured into 

 the cold milk of the evening before, it means a loss in butter quality be- 

 cause of "smothered" milk. Every exposure of the cans to the hot sun 

 of summer while the milk is on the way to the creamery means a lessen- 

 ing of that fine delicate taste that is to butter what the fine edge produced 

 only by honing is to the axe or other sharp cutting tool. It is not in nature 

 that the stream shall rise above its source neither may it be that butter 

 shall be better than the milk it is made from. 



Something can be done, it is true, in the creamery to overcome pre- 

 vious neglect of the milk, through the cleaning process of centrifugal cream 

 separation and through the use of heat to stop further deterioration, as 

 cooking will check for a time the spoiling of food. But neither of these 

 processes will restore a tenth part of that fine flavor the milk has lost through 



