298 Report on the Dairy-Farmivg of the North-west of France. 
about two gallons each. The milk is taken to the dairy, and 
that from the several cows being more or less mixed together, 
it is strained through a sieve lined with clean linen into 
earthenware buckets. These buckets are placed in a row in 
the milk-house, generally on a course or two of brickwork raised 
above the general level of the floor, and the milk is then set 
for 12 hours. The cream skimmed after the first 12 hours is not 
mixed with what is taken off afterwards until immediately 
before churning, and in some instances butter of exceptional 
delicacy for Paris is made entirely from the 12-hours' cream. 
Some farmers let the milk stand 24 hours in summer and 48 in 
winter, and others even longer still, but it is almost needless to 
add that they do not get the best price for their butter. Nor 
does the increase in quantity which they obtain compensate them 
for lack of quality. 
The cream is churned twice or three times a week in a barrel- 
churn. Generally, the true Norman barrel-churn (Fig. 4) is used. 
Fig. 4. — The Norman Barrel-churn. 
Elevatiox. Ekd-view. 
d. Spigot. i. VeuUIation Peg. (The bead being removed.) 
It has fixed dashboards, and, as will be seen by the engraving, 
they do not extend to the circumference of the churn. Thus 
the only corners where butter or butter-milk could lodge 'are the 
very small ones at each end of the dashboards. The dash- 
boards are perfectly plain laths, and the churn altogether is a 
model of simplicity and effectiveness, completely illustrating 
the truth of th«; conclusion arrived at by the Judges of Dairy 
Appliances at Bristol — "that numerous and large dashers are 
a mistake" (see p. 146). According to the size of the churn it 
is lurnlshed with one or two large openings, which are opened 
and shut by one of the usual contrivances employed in other 
barrel-churns. Tliere is also a vent-peg placed in or near the 
