86 



whether large or small, possess all the proper re- 

 quisites. 



A dairy room should be cool in summer, and mo- 

 derately warm in winter, so as to )>e throughout the 

 whole year about 45 degrees in temperature. The 

 degree of heat you will prove by an instrument called 

 a thermometer, on which the degrees of ht-at and 

 cold are marked, on a tube tiUed with quicksilver, 

 which rises or falls accorchng to the temperature. A 

 northern exposure is the best, and if it can be so si- 

 tuated as to l>e shaded by trees or buibhngs from the 

 sun, so much the better ; a milk-house should have 

 no inside communication with any other builchng ; it 

 should be kept clear from smoke, well aired, and 

 perfectly clean, and nothing Ukely to give it a strong- 

 er bad smell, such as fish, onions, cheese, should be 

 kept in it. 



All the utensils — the pails, hair-cloth sieves (for 

 passing the milk through, to free it froin hairs and 

 all impurities,) milk dishes or coolers, tubs, churns, 

 made of oak or lime wood, which is best of all, ha- 

 ving no acid in it, and butter prints — .diould be kept 

 perfectly sweet and clean, scalded, scrubbed, rinsed 

 and dried every time they are used, otherwise they 

 will have a bad smeU and spoil the butter. Snuff- 

 takers, sluts and dandles are unfit to l>e dairy women ; 

 and no milker should be suffered to enter the dairy 

 in a dirty apron covered with hairs from the cow- 

 house. In some places cows are curried, combed and 

 brushed ; and liefore milking, their udders and teats 

 are washed clean. Now where clean milk is an ob- 

 ject, using a brush and washing is qiiite as infhspen- 

 sable as it is easy of performance. The small holders 

 wife, who has but one cow, has no excuse for negli- 

 gence on this point, and yet I have generally seen 

 the poor man's solitary cow much less clean than she 

 ought to be ; and as to her milk and butter, kept in 

 a close stinking bed-room — who that had the mis- 

 fortune to taste, smell, or even look at, the butter 



