1860. 



NEW ENGLAND FAIIMER. 



325 



much, always to be prepared for a fight, as feeling 

 safe from their sting, I take things "fair and 

 easy," and usually learn my bees so. During the 

 past winter, I left my stocks out exposed to the 

 ■weather, with no protection but the hive, and they 

 stand on the north side of a high hill, and they 

 came out finely this spring, and I have never had 

 any which look better than mine at the present 

 time ; heretofore, I have always advised housing 

 them during the coldest months. N. Q. T. 



King Oak Hill, May, 1860. 



BUTTER AND CHUBNS. 



"We have just come from the stall of one of the 

 neatest butter merchants in Boston market, — a 

 man whose personal appearance, at first sight, is 

 a guaranty that what he sends to your table as 

 good butter will be as fragrant as a June rose, 

 provided such can be found among the butter- 

 makers of New England or New York. This stall 

 is No. 1, Faneuil Hall Market, and the man you 

 will meet there, in a long frock, as white as the 

 driven snow, is Mr. J. W. Merriam. Upon ask- 

 ing him what proportion of Jirst rate butter he 

 thinks there is out of all brought into market, he 

 replied, "Oh?^ one i)ound in ten!" This is the 

 judgment of a man whose business of life has 

 been for many years to buy, and sell, and judge 

 of the article of which we are speaking, and he 

 states it as his opinion that only one pound out 

 of every ten brought to Boston market would be 

 pronounced by good judges asjirst rate butter ! 



It costs as much, ordinarily, to make a pound 

 of poor butter as to make a pound of good, so 

 that if we had the means of showing how much 

 is brought into this market annually, we could 

 show a loss to the farmer which would startle him 

 so as nearly to shake the very bones out of his 

 body ! But this shaking would not abate the pre- 

 judice of some against thought and investigation, 

 and they would still go on cutting their hay and 

 grain at improper times and attempting to cure 

 them without the use of caps, hacking their fruit 

 trees in March and April, and making miserable 

 butter that is a drug at ten cents a pound when 

 it might just as well command seventeen ! 



It is not a difficult thing to make good butter, 

 — but in order to do so, certain conditions must 

 be complied with, because they are absolutely es- 

 sential conditions, and without this compliance, 

 all the labor that can be bestowed upon it, to- 

 gether with the best materials, will be employed 

 in vain. The first prerequisite is cleanliness: 

 cleanliness almost to a fault, — and this must be- 

 gin with the milker. The cow's bag must be kept 

 clean, so that nothing adhering there shall taint 

 the milk before it passes into the hands of the 

 dairy-woman. This care must be observed in ev- 

 ery stage of the process. The milk and cream 



should be kept in a room by themselves ; never 

 where there are turnips, onions, or other roots, 

 or smoked or dried fish, or any thing else that 

 imparts odor to the air of the room. 



The next important consideration is that of 

 temperature ; this should be as even as possible, 

 not only while the cream is being gathered, but 

 especially so when it is brought out and put into 

 the churn. All the surroundings should then be 

 alike in temperature — the cream, the chum itself, 

 and the air of the room in which the churning is 

 going on. For the want of this uniformity many 

 a vexatious hour has been passed, beating the 

 cream into froth, but bringing no butter. It will 

 not answer to bring cream from a room where the 

 temperature is 62°, and dash it into a churn the 

 temperature of w'hich stands at 40°. An equal- 

 izing process immediately takes place between the 

 two substances, — the cream elevating the temper- 

 ature of the churn, and the churn depressing that 

 of the cream, so that the latter is in no condition 

 to be converted speedily into butter. 



When the butter is made, and is really good, 

 its value in the market greatly depends upon the 

 manner in which it is put up. Mr. INIerriam 

 showed us two lots he had just received from the 

 town of R * * * * *, Vermont, and remarked as he 

 replaced the covers upon the tubs, "Allowing the 

 butter to be of the same quality, there is three or 

 four cents difference per pound in its value in con- 

 sequence of the manner of packing ! Look here, 

 there are no prints of fingers oti that lot, and the 

 cloths that cover it are adjusted with just as much 

 nicety, as though its sale depended entirely upon 

 that point. See how white the tubs are ! This 

 lot of butter is worth Jive cents a pound more than 

 the other." The most money can be made on the 

 best butter, both by the farmer and the butter- 

 merchant. 



]Many persons impute great virtue to the churn 

 in butter-making, and seem to suppose that a 

 good article cannot be made, unless by the use of 

 a particular churn. But with a good deal of ex- 

 perience and observation in the matter, we have 

 found that any churn so constructed as to strike 

 the cream a frequent and smart blow, would soon 

 bring the butter, provided the other conditions 

 were right, good cream and a proper temperature 

 in the cream, churn and room. The common dash 

 churn is constructed upon the right principle to 

 bring the butter quickly, and the only objection 

 to it seems to be the hard work required to use it. 



Several points more suggest themselves in re- 

 gard to this important baanch of farming, but our 

 remarks are already too long for us to enumerate 

 them. We trust this point will be remembered 

 by every dairy-w'oman, viz.. That the butter that 

 is made the best, and put up in the most careful 

 manner, willalioaus return the lorqesi nrn-fit ! 



