1861. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



361 



you would never have been troubled with unruly 

 cattle." The above case illustrates the slack sys- 

 tem perfectly ; the advice given, I consider good. 



Nor is this all. The bogus farmer loves pov- 

 erty better than riches ; else he would strive to 

 be independent. But instead, he loves to depend 

 upon his more fortunate (lucky, he calls them,) 

 neighbors, for any thing he does not happen to 

 have. He is, as I heard an old lady express her- 

 self, "forever eternally borrowing something or 

 other." He loves to borrow, for he says it is 

 cheaper than to buy. T. P. Bailey. 



Neivbury, Vt., 1861. 



ERRORS AND REQUISITES IN" MAKING 

 . BUTTER. 



It is often remarked that good dairies cannot 

 be made without good dairywomen, and I take 

 the liberty to assert that it cannot be done by the 

 best dairywomen in the world, unless provided 

 with the necessary conveniences. I would like 

 to see dairywomen having skill enough to make 

 first quality of butter from milk drawn from cows 

 whose temperature has been raised to fever heat 

 by fright and running, yet dairymen sometimes 

 expect this ; and will buy the poorest cows, give 

 them about half enough to eat, furnish a very 

 poor milk-room, other fixtures in proportion, and 

 then find fault with their good wives, for not mak- 

 ing better butter, and more of it. 



On the other hand, there is one fault peculiar 

 to the dairywomen of the country, originating in 

 the fact that each thinks she makes the very best 

 butter that is made anywhere. Consequently, the 

 husbands are censured for not getting as much 

 by two or three cents a pound, as some other man 

 does. If I can ever be forgiven by dear women 

 for saying this, (and I know their charity is bound- 

 less,) I will tell them how to remedy this bone of 

 contention. Never allow a butter buyer an op- 

 portunity to find fault with your butter, but tell 

 him before he sees it, "that if it is faulty you 

 would be pleased to have him tell you the whys 

 and wherefores, and you will in future apply the 

 remedy." My word for it, you will make it pay 

 in the end, to do so. 



As to the cows, I make it a point to get those 

 with a good yellow skin, the quality of the milk 

 being very essential in the making of good but- 

 ter, that of a fine yellow color always having the 

 preference, and such butter cannot be made from 

 cows with pale, colorless skin. 



The next point is, food for the cow, which 

 should be of the best quality, and plenty of it. 

 The pasture should be where there is abundance 

 of good sweet feed, with a plentiful supply of 

 water. The quality of feed has much to do with 

 the quality of butter. 



The milking should be done with neatness, the 

 milk should be kept in a good cool place, properly 

 ventilated, and everything about it kept clean and 

 sweet. I prefer to have the milk-room above 

 ground, as I think the cream rises better in most 

 kinds of weather, than it does in cellars. We 

 use tin pans placed upon racks for setting the 

 milk, letting it stand a suflicient time for the 

 cream to rise, which is generally, in warm weath- 

 er, about thirty-six hours, but I think that it re- 

 quires great care and good judgment on the part 

 of the dairywomen, to see that the milk does not 



stand too long before it is skimmed, as, for in- 

 stance, in very muggy, hot weather. Before thun- 

 der storms the milk will sour very soon, and if it 

 is not attended to at the proper time, you will be 

 likely to have a poor churning of butter, which 

 injures the sale of a dairy very much. Hence 

 the state of the weather and other circumstances 

 must govern you in regard to the time you allow 

 the milk to stand before it is skimmed. The 

 cream taken off" at night should be set in a cool 

 place in the cellar, and churned in the morning. 



Now for the churning process, which requires 

 judgment and skill in regard to temperature of 

 cream. My experience is, that in warm weather 

 it should be about fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit, 

 but the general opinion is from sixty to sixty-five 

 degrees ; that I think too warm, though much 

 depends upon the place and state of the atmos- 

 phere where you are churning. The cream natu- 

 rally grows warmer by churning, especially if the 

 air that is thrown into the churn is warmer than 

 the cream, and the reverse — if the atmosphere is 

 colder than the cream, it would grow cold. You 

 should be ruled by circumstances in this matter 

 also. When the butter comes, it should be taken 

 from the churn and the buttermilk worked out. 

 We prefer to wash with cold water, thinking that 

 we can remove the buttermilk with less working 

 than without the water. Then it should be salt- 

 ed with good pure salt, about one ounce of salt 

 to a pound of butter, thoroughly worked in, then 

 covered to exclude the air, and set in a cool place 

 for twelve or twenty-four hours ; when it should 

 be worked again sufficiently to free it from but- 

 termilk. The moment that is done it should be 

 packed in the firkin and covered tightly to keep 

 it from the air, and when the firkin is filled it 

 should be covered with a cloth and a strong brine 

 made of salt put on the butter, and kept so until 

 it goes to market. 



I repeat the assertion that it requires good judg- 

 ment and skill to manufacture a fine article of 

 butter, but the cost is no more than an ordinary 

 article, and not as much as a very poor article. 

 Butter will absorb impurities quicker probably 

 than any other article ; hence it should be kept 

 away from all impure or strong scented substan- 

 ces if you would keep it from getting tainted with 

 bad odors. 



One error in butter-making is over-working, 

 which leaves it salvy, and destroys the grain, les- 

 sening the price much. Another is not working 

 enough to remove the buttermilk, which renders 

 it unsaleable. Another is not salting enough, 

 while others salt too high ; another is a cheesey 

 substance we sometimes find in cream and but- 

 ter, which makes it very unpalatable, and injures 

 the sale. All these defects should be avoided, 

 and I think can be, with proper attention. 



One great beauty of a dairy is to have it as 

 nearly alike as possible, uniformly of the best, 

 through the season, which can only be done by 

 the greatest care and attention. Ice is very ne- 

 cessary in most localities, especially in the warm- 

 est part of the season. Some very fine dairies 

 frequently have what is called "warm weather 

 butter," Avhich injures the sale of the whole very 

 much. What I mean by this is, that in the hot- 

 test weather, unless you have ice, or very cold 

 water, the butter will come soft, and it is very 

 difficult to make a fine article. 



