1905.] Co-operative Dairying in England. 



195 



brick or the pleasant-looking old-fashioned red tiles are the 

 worst possible materials for a dairy floor as they are porous, 

 wear badly and unevenly, and the spaces between either planks, 

 bricks or tiles form from the first the most suitable breeding 

 ground for bacteria. 



After the milk is unloaded from the carts, it is weighed and 

 the amount credited to the farmer sending the milk, whose 

 name, to avoid disputes, is usually indelibly stamped upon the 

 churn. Weight is now nearly universally adopted in preference 

 to volume as the method of measurement, both to escape the 

 errors caused by the appearance of froth upon the surface of the 

 milk and also as a superficial test of quality. A gallon of dis- 

 tilled water at a temperature of 6o°F. weighs 10 lb., and a gallon 

 of milk under precisely the same conditions should weigh 

 anything between 10*28 and 10*33 lb., or roughly speaking 10J lb. 

 As each lot of milk is weighed by the manager, his assistant 

 empties the churn into a vat made to hold about 230 gallons. 



Flowing out of this vat and controlled by a stop-cock, the milk 

 passes through a smaller vat (which has the effect of steadying 

 the flow), and is then conducted by a pipe to an inverted 

 bell-shaped vessel down the side of which it flows in a thin film. 

 This bell-shaped vessel is heated internally by a steam pipe 

 from the boiler, and the milk is thus raised to a temperature of 

 90 deg. F. (on the Continent the practice is to heat it much.., 

 higher), and is then conducted to the separator, the resultant cream 

 being allowed to flow into enamelled pails which are carried to- 

 another part of the dairy and placed in ripening vessels. 



The separated milk, on the other hand, is conducted over a 

 refrigerator by which it is cooled down to the natural tempera- 

 ture of the water-supply and is received in pails to be weighed,, 

 prior to its return to the farmer in proportion to the quantity of 

 whole milk supplied. It is carted away by him and used for the 

 rearing of calves, pigs, &c, and possibly for use in the household 

 to some extent as well. 



When the cream is sufficiently ripe it is churned, steam- 

 power being used, and the butter is worked on a circular table 

 revolving by steam under a fluted radius roller thus bringing the 

 butter continually under a gentle pressure which has the effect 

 of pressing out the superfluous moisture, the attendant standing 



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