38 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



in the upper story. In the summer of 1875 he bought eggs sufficient to pack 

 2,000 barrels. These were packed in chalS and cut straw and stored in this 

 refrigerator till winter, when they -were marketed fresh and good. Several 

 thousand turkeys were bought during the winter, and after being frozen 

 w^ere stored in this refrigerator till May, when they were marketed in fine 

 condition. Apples stored in it in October, 1875, are to-day as sound as when 

 picked from the trees. A bag of lemons is also shown which has been on 

 storage all summer and the fruit is perfectly preserved. 



This aticle is probably an advertisement and exaggerates somewhat, yet 

 I have no doubt but that butter may be kept in, this way below 50^, and 

 that would aid very greatly the keeping of summer butter for winter use. 



During our nine years' residence in Iowa, it was our practice to buy 

 (about the first week of June) butter sufficient to last us a year. My wife 

 would pack it in stone jars with a little brine on top of the butter. The 

 bottom of our cellar was gravel and I used to set them down in the gravel, 

 so that the top of the jars was but little above the cellar bottom, and we 

 never had a jar of poor butter. One spring we had a jar left over, and I 

 sold it to the same merchant I bought it of— buying at fifteen and selling at 

 thirty cents. And one season we summered over a surplus jar and used it 

 the second winter in February and March, and it was good. Gen. Wilson, 

 at that time editor of the Iowa Homestead, took tea with us one evening 

 while we were using that butter, and remarked two or three times during 

 the meal, '' What beautiful butter you have. Why, I can buy no such 

 butter as this in Des Moines." The fact that summer butter has been kept 

 fresh and sweet for winter use is positive proof that it can be so kept. 



To recapitulate : The four essentials for preserving summer butter for 

 winter use or markets, are : It must be well made. It must be salted with 

 pure salt. It must be so packed as to entirely exclude the air. It must be 

 kept at a low temperature. If any one of these four conditions are wanting 

 your butter will not keep. Yet after all I believe the best way to keep 

 summer butter for winter use is to keep it in the grasses and the grains you 

 provide for your dairy stock, until near the time you wish to market it. 

 Kept in this way it will never become strong. 



J. Smallwood, Freeport, packed 200 pounds in six-gallon 

 jars; filled nearly full, and then completed with salt; when 

 done, he buried the whole in the ground one foot deep. Opened 

 it last Monday. The freshness was gone, but it was not 

 ruined; sold the most of it. Would like to hear fiom others. 



Dr. Tefft said it was a well known fact that butter was 

 spoiled by a vegetable growth of spores. The secret of keep- 

 ing butter was to put it where spores could not reach it. Fresh 

 meats could be preserved by placing in an air-tight box, then 

 exhaust the air, and when it enters let it pass through cotton 



