THE CARE OF MILK. 257 



is not strained at once, some cream will rise, if the milk 

 is rich, and this cream will be caught in the meshes of 

 the strainer and be lost. Before the milk is poured out 

 of the pail it is safe to first pour out a quart or so and re- 

 turn this into the pail ; this will remoye any stray hairs 

 or dust that may have fallen on to the outside of the 

 strainer spout or lip of the pail. This is more especially 

 advisable with those pails the strainer of which cannot 

 be wiped with a clean cloth. The improved strainer 

 pail, shown in figure 27 — which, by the way, is not pat- 

 ented — may be easily cleaned or wiped to remove any 

 hair, dust or other impurity which may have fallen 

 on it, and it is also protected by the hinged cover (not 

 shown in the engraving) which excludes dust during the 

 milking. In placing the milk pans on the shelves, or the 

 pails in the pool, it will be found convenient to have 

 them arranged in regular order and to retain this order 

 always, so that there is never any doubt about the right 

 pans to be skimmed. The shelves maybe arranged so as 

 to make this very easy and not to move any pans, but 

 to put the freshly filled pans always in the place of 

 those last skimmed. If one shelf only is used, the pans 

 must be moved along to fill the place of those skimmed 

 at one end and make room at the other end for the fresh 

 milk. The pans should never be covered. If it is nec- 

 essary to cover anything to exclude flies, mice or other 

 vermin, the windows should be covered with fine wire 

 gauze, and to guard against mice the shelves should be 

 purposely arranged. 



"When the m,ilk has stood thirty-six hours the cream 

 will have risen, and should be skimmed off. At this 

 time the cream will be thick and adherent, and on good 

 milk that has been set two inches deep in shallow pans 

 should be at least a quarter of an inch thick. This will 

 give twelve per cent of pure cream, which is as much as 

 the author has ever Tcmion any cow to give, although it has 



