70 



On the Production of Butter. 



vegetable refuse matter. If milk is so liable to be affected that 

 it may be the medium of conveying poison through the cow, it 

 follows that the quality of butter very materially depends upon 

 the quality of the water which the cow drinks. 



The necessity of cleanliness on the fart of the dairymaid is in- 

 sisted on by every writer on this subject. The dairy-vessels 

 must be scrupulously clean : they and the dairy itself must be 

 removed from everything that taints the air. The fumes of a 

 stable, or the effluvia of a pigsty or dungheap (which are too 

 frequently found in the vicinity of the dairy-house), injuriously 

 affect the butter. If the cooler be made of zinc, a very serious 

 effect indeed may be produced. " It is probable," says Dr. 

 Taylor, " that some of the lactate of zinc is here formed, as well 

 as a combination of the oxide of iron with casein. I have been 

 informed that milk and cream which were allowed to stand in 

 such vessels have given rise to nausea and vomiting. This 

 practice would not be allowed under a proper system of police.'' 

 Even when the cream is safely " boxed,'' it is not out of danger : 

 for in the box-churn the whey often escapes through the spindle- 

 hole, and the butter gets a metallic taint. In its next stage, if 

 the hand of the dairymaid be moist or " sweaty," or recently 

 washed with soap, the butter acquires a rancid taste ; and though 

 it may have reached the tub in safety, it frequently spoils from 

 improper packing. In fine, from the time when its elements are 

 first formed from the succulent grass of the field until the time 

 when it appears on the breakfast-table, butter leads (so to speak) 

 a most precarious existence, and its preservation depends almost 

 entirely on the trifling^ but constant, attentions which I have 

 endeavoured to indicate. 



The Cow. — The quality of butter and the quantity of milk 

 depend less on the breed than on the food of the animal. It is 

 almost impossible to assign to any particular breed the milching 

 palm — it belongs to the individual animal. I have found one 

 dairyman speaking of Herefords as the best milchers within his 

 experience ; his neighbour favoured the beautifully symmetrical 

 North Devon ; whilst a third declared that the best milk-pro- 

 ducer was a cross. In the London dairies the Yorkshire short- 

 horn or the Holderness cow is almost universally found. A 

 London dairyman told me that the red cows were regarded with 

 antipathy by almost every cowkeeper in the metropolis. He 

 could not account for it, but the dappled cow always had the call 

 in Smithfield. It is, however, not difficult to discover that the 

 cow selected is of a breed that generally gives the largest quantity 

 of milk without reference to the quality, as, by the London dairy- 

 man, milk, and not butter and cheese, is the article required. 

 The Hereford, the Devon, the short-horn, and the cross are good, 



