48 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



DAIRY BUTTER 



(By Charles Foss, Freeport, 111., R. 6.) 



It is needless to say that poor dairy butter is a drug on 

 the market. While on the other hand good dairy butter is 

 always in demand and will always bring a good price. Un- 

 less one has the inclination and apparatus to make the very 

 best dairy butter he had better not make any. 



One of the first essentials to butter making is cleanli- 

 ness. Clean food for cows, clean stable, clean cows, clean 

 hands, clean apparatus and utensils. My cows are kept in 

 "Bidwell Stalls" both day and night during the winter. 

 Each cow's stall is carefully adjusted so that she cannot 

 become soiled. Silage is never fed until after the milking 

 is done, and the milk has been removed from the barn. If 

 their udders become soiled they are washed. As soon as 

 the milking is done the milk is taken from the barn to the 

 creamery where it is immediately separated, the skim milk 

 is fed to calves and pigs and the cream is immediately 

 taken to the spring, where it is cooled down to about 48 

 degrees F. The cream is kept in cooling cans and while it 

 is being cooled the cover is partly removed from the can to 

 allow the animal odor to pass off. 



The Dairy. 



The dairy is 10 feet by 16 feet, built to the end of the 

 barn, but has no opening into the barn, making it necessary 

 in going from the barn to the dairy to first go outside of the 

 barn before going to the dairy. The idea is to have the air 

 in the dairy to be as nearly perfect as possible,. 



The dairy is double sided on the outside with two thick- 

 nesses of building paper between the siding and is sided and 

 ceiled in inside with matched boards. The sides and ceil- 

 ing are painted and are washed twice a year, the sides at 

 the bottom are washed oftener. 



