428 



Dairy Farming in Sweden. 



[OCT., 



concerns there are male managers, and for the most part, male 

 hands. 



Separators are almost universally employed, and the cream 

 after becoming ripe is churned in the so-called Holstein churn ; 

 in a few of the larger dairies churns of new types have been 

 introduced to enable larger quantities of cream to be treated at 

 a time. The butter is nowadays worked almost exclusively by 

 mechanical butter-workers. After the first working the butter is 

 salted and worked afresh, after having lain in a sufficiently cool 

 place long enough for the salt to melt. In the manufacture of 

 butter for export, the cream is subjected to a special souring 

 process, much improved of late years by the employment of 

 vessels of tinned sheet metal and by the use of carefully prepared 

 souring agents, in the production of which pure-cultures are 

 used in many dairies. Unsalted or fresh butter is only prepared 

 in small quantities for local requirements. When salted and 

 worked, the butter is packed in kegs of about I cvvt. In a few 

 dairies the butter is occasionally made up into rolls, wrapped in 

 parchment paper and packed in boxes of 56 lb. Refrigerator 

 chambers are used for the storage of the butter between the 

 workings and after packing, and in some places the new milk, 

 or the cream and the skimmed milk separately, is pasteurised. 



With regard to the disposal of the by-products the co-opera- 

 tive dairies have the advantage of being able to return the 

 skimmed milk, etc., to the farmers by whom it is employed for 

 food, for the manufacture of cheese, for calves and pigs. 



Milk is usually weighed, and payment is dependent on the 

 price of butter, though the system of payment according to the 

 percentage of fat in the milk has also been adopted. The 

 amount of fat in the milk is now calculated by the butyrometer. 

 To facilitate the calculation of prices, as they vary, the Swedish 

 Dairy Experts' Association publish monthly tables based on the 

 percentages of fat and the butter prices. Payments for the 

 butter received and delivered are made every week, the prices 

 being ruled mainly by the quotations of the Copenhagen market. 

 The dairies despatch their produce once a week, as a rule, to the 

 centres of export, many railways providing special refrigerator 

 cars during the summer. 



The State and the Agricultural Societies endeavour in many 



