‘‘A POUND OF BUTTER/' 
Its History from Cow to Consumer. 
THE BIG three: SILO, SEPARATOR AND “STARTER.” 
What is a Pound of Butter P 
Rouffhly speaking, when we pay our money for a 
pound of butter, we receive 2}^ ounces of water, one- 
half ounce of salt, one-fourth ounce of curd, and 12% 
ounces of fat. The fat is what we are after. The 
water gives the fat the proper consistency for spread¬ 
ing on our bread, the salt helps to preserve the fat, 
and gives it the desired salty taste, while the curd, or 
cheesy matter, is an intruder which clings to the fat in 
the process of skimming and churning. Good butter 
differs from bad butter, not only in the skill with 
which skimming, churning and handling are done, 
but goes beyond them to the very feed given the cow. 
There are no fats so 
delicate and quick to 
absorb bad odors and 
tastes as those found in 
milk. Thus it is that 
good butter cannot pos¬ 
sibly be made from sour 
feed, or in dirty, ill¬ 
smelling places, because 
the delicate fats will ab¬ 
sorb and retain the bad 
odors about them, and 
never give them up. 
In the following ar¬ 
ticles it is proposed to 
tell the story of a pound 
of good butter, in fuller 
detail, perhaps, than has 
ever been done before. 
These facts are not in¬ 
tended for the experi¬ 
enced dairyman so much 
as for those who wish to 
improve their methods 
and desire information 
in the primary depart¬ 
ments of dairying. It 
seems to me that a good 
many of our dairy writ¬ 
ers talk over the heads 
of the very class of men 
who most need help. It 
is dangerous for a 
teacher to assume that 
a pupil knows his primer 
because the teacher 
thinks he ought to. 
That is why, in these 
articles, an effort is made 
to be as simple and plain 
as possible, even at the 
risk of taking extra time 
and space for the telling. 
The scene of the making of our pound of butter is 
at Dix Hill Farm, Deer Park, Long Island. I selected 
this place because the methods and surroundings are 
such as are all within reach of the every-day farmer. 
It is not a fancy farm in any sense of the word. Its 
owner has no outside business at which to raise money 
for running his farm, neither has he any outside for¬ 
tune to spend on experiments. He has the farm and 
that is alL Mr. H. P. Carll is a young man who 
bought his father’s farm, and gave a good mortgage 
which he is now paying off, putting up new buildings 
and improving the whole place out of the sale of good 
butter. Mind you, good butter. I expect to show you 
that if Mr. Carll were making poor butter, he would 
be making but a poor living to go with it. The 
difference between poor and good is also the difference 
between d, hape living and a good profit. 
First of All Comes the Milk, 
And, as a preface to that, we may speak of the farm 
and the feed. There are 100 acres of tillable land, 
one-third under the plow each year, and 20 acres of 
pasture. The only farm crops are grass and grain— 
cow food entirely, viz., corn, peas and oats, rye, or 
wheat and grass. Twenty acres of corn are grown 
every year, enough to fill a 100-ton silo being 
used for that purpose, and the remainder cut and 
husked for grain, with the stalks afterwards cut up 
and fed dry at noon. The ensilage and husked corn 
receive just the same treatment in the field, except 
that the former is cut a little earlier. B. & W. corn 
is used, and is planted in hills. The meadows are 
plowed on an average after five years’ service, and 
com is planted on the sod, after which comes a crop 
of grain and seeding to grass. The manure is hauled 
out of the barnyard every two or three weeks, and 
spread on the wheat or rye or on the sod designed for 
the corn crop. In addition to this heavy manuring the 
corn also receives a good dressing of corn fertilizer 
in the hill. When asked why he used the fertilizer in 
addition to the manure, Mr. Carll said it was for the 
same reason that he fed his cows grain in addition to 
their ensilage and hay. The fertilizers are quickly 
soluble, and hurry the plant along in the early part 
of the season. The slower acting manure is more 
useful in the hotter months, and also provides food 
for subsequent crops of grain and hay. A large 
amount of bran and malt sprouts are bought, and 
towards spring a small amount of linseed meal is fed, 
as Mr. Carll regards this as a fine cow tonic. Mr. C. 
does not consider corn meal so valuable for butter 
food as many do. He does not get the returns from 
it that he gets from bran, but this is doubtless due to 
the fact that his ensilage contains a good share of com 
ears so that bran balances it far better than extra 
meal would. He has fed cotton-seed meal, and likes 
to use a little of a pure article when feeding ensilage 
or when the cows are at pasture—not otherwise. The 
meal varies so, however, that he buys but little of it— 
in fact does not buy much cow food besides bran and 
malt sprouts. 
The Cows and How they Live. 
At about half past five in the afternoon Mr. C. put 
on his hat and said : “ Milking time—let’s go out and 
see the goat skim the cream ! ” 
Almost any one interested in farm economy would 
go far to see a goat make himself useful; so out I 
went to the barn. The cows stood in the long rows 
fastened in stanchions. 
They turned their beau¬ 
tiful heads to watch us 
as though well knowing 
they would have no 
supper until they had 
given down their milk. 
The cows have all more 
or less Jersey blood. 
Mr. C. always did love 
a good cow. He saw the 
Ayrshires first, and 
thought they were about 
right, but a few years 
later the J erseys came to 
the front, and then the 
Ayrshires had to go until 
now there is but one 
Ayrshire left in the 
herd. The bull is a 
thoroughbred (Paul 
Rioter 31203) of a great 
butter-producing fami¬ 
ly. There are also a 
few choice purebred 
cows and heifers, so that 
within a few years it 
will be possible to sell 
blooded stock from the 
herd. Most of the work¬ 
ing cows are grades, 
half Jersey blood or 
more. Their yield and 
care will be explained 
later on. 
Putting on a big apron 
that covered the whole 
front of his clothes, Mr. 
C. took his pail and pre- 
pa r e d to milk some 
heifers. There was no 
manure blanket on these 
cows, for they are 
brushed and carded every day, and bedded out of the 
manure. Mr. C. milks the heifers himself. With 
patience and gentleness on his part they soon learn 
to stand still. 
“You don’t need a tail-holder here ?” I asked. 
“No; we get along well without it. Of course 
young heifers sometimes hitch and move about. They 
don’t mean to be ugly, but if the milker should strike 
or swear at them they would soon develop into regu¬ 
lar kickers, with little hope of curing them. When 
they are uneasy, I take a short rope and tie it around 
their legs just above the hock joint, so that it passes 
around both legs in the form of a figure 8. That 
keeps them quiet, and they never learn to kick or 
raise the foot. Why not teach a heifer good habits as 
well as bad ones ? ’’ 
Each cow’s milk was weighed separately—a spring 
The Goat and the Baby Separator at Work in the Dairy. Fig. 61. 
