FOREIGN DAIRYING. 107 



partially filled with water, or arranged for water to be 

 continually running through. In some milk rooms, how- 

 ever, there is hardly any system ; the milk cans being placed 

 at one end of the apartment in any position on the main floor. 

 As a rule the churning and working of the butter is not 

 conducted in this apartment, which is reserved entirely 

 for milk. There are three systems adopted in raising the 

 cream. Sometimes it is skimmed from entirely sweet 

 milk ; and the butter made from this cream is usually sent 

 to Paris, and obtains the highest possible prices, for the 

 Parisians are famous for the quality of their butter. In 

 other dairies the cream is allowed to sour, and is not taken 

 off the milk until the latter has turned, and is frequently 

 found in a state of curd. The farmers believe that they 

 obtain a larger yield of butter by this means, which is 

 possible, considering that they must take up some curd 

 with it, and they find that it procures a fuller flavour,- 

 which is preferred by a certain class of consumers. This 

 butter also keeps better if it is thoroughly well made, but 

 not unless. Another system which we have seen adopted 

 in the department of La Manche, is that of artificially 

 souring the milk. The milk room is usually placed behind 

 the kitchen, so that a communication can be made between 

 the flue and the milk room. At a certain time in the day 

 a tap is turned, and a quantity of hot air is sent into the 

 milk room, which is at all other times exceptionally cool, 

 and the sudden change turns the milk. In these cases we 

 were astonished to find, upon lifting the cream in the pans 

 with the skimmer, that the milk underneath was an 

 absolutely thick curd, and it appears to us impossible that 

 butter can be made without the introduction of a certain 

 percentage of this. The farmer uses the curd for two 



