THE LARGEST CREAMERY IN THE WORLD. 
IIOW THEY MAKE BUTTER IK VERMONT. 
An Ocean of Milk and Cream. 
The Franklin County Creamery, located at St. Al¬ 
bans, Vt., is conceded to he the largest in the world. 
To the visitor who sees for the first time such vast 
quantities of cream, the product of over 20,000 cows, 
poured into a battery of 14 mammoth box churns, 
each with a churning capacity of 500 pounds of butter, 
and this process repeated several times the same day, 
the thought comes as to how it is possible to concen¬ 
trate so vast an amount of cream. I was told that 10 
teams were constantly employed bringing in cream 
from the surrounding country, while two express cars 
were sent out every day over the Central Vermont 
Railroad to gather cream along the route as far as 
Rieliford and Essex Junction, each about 25 miles 
distant, and up the Lamoille Valley as far as Cam¬ 
bridge Junction, about 40 miles distant. The daily 
output of butter during the summer months runs 
from 12,000 to 20,000 pounds, decreasing to, perhaps, 
one-half that amount 
during the winter 
months ; but the cream¬ 
ery is kept running all 
the year ’round. 
The association would 
like to see more winter 
dairying practiced by 
the farmers, believing 
that the increased price 
paid for cream during 
the winter would fully 
compensate them for 
the extra feed and care 
required. The process 
of handling the cream 
at the Franklin County 
Creamery is similar to 
that of smaller cream¬ 
eries ; in fact, nearly 
all their milk is stripped 
of its cream at the sep¬ 
arating stations in vari¬ 
ous parts of the county 
near to where the milk 
is produced, thus en¬ 
abling the farmer to 
deliver his milk near 
by and return home 
with his portion of 
skim-milk. There are 
now 64 separating stations in operation connected 
with the creamery, and new requests are constantly 
being made for others. 
“Pure Culture Bacteria " for Ripening Cream. 
I had heard that this association were ripening 
cream by an artificial process of introducing a certain 
species of bacteria into it, while yet fresh and sweet; 
so I asked the manager what he had to say in regard 
to its use. “ We know but little about it as yet. Some 
weeks ago, a representative of the Conn process, came 
to us and proposed to demonstrate to us the practical 
advantages to be gained by its use. We then made a 
few batches of butter, with the help of the expert, 
and sent sample lots to several of our customers. The 
cream so treated made very good butter, but we are 
in the habit of making very good butter all the year 
with our own process ; so we are not in a very good 
position to speak very knowingly of Mr. Conn’s 
process.” 
Prof. H. W. Conn, after many experiments, dis¬ 
covered that the ripening of cream is the development 
in it of various bacilli. After long research, Prof. 
Conn discovered the particular bacillus that predomi¬ 
nated in the spring and early summer months, when 
the cattle are turned into the pastures. He found 
that this gave the peculiar flavor to butter, known to 
dairymen as the June flavor. He cultivated this 
bacillus, and found that putting it in the cream 
greatly improved the quality of butter at all seasons 
of the year. The method of procedure is about as fol¬ 
lows : A half-pint of milk is first placed in an ordinary 
bottle ; this is sterilized by continuous steaming for 
three or four days. Then the sterilized milk is inocu¬ 
lated with a small amount of the bacillus, and the 
culture thus produced allowed to grow at about 74 de¬ 
grees F. for a couple of days. This is to increase the 
number of bacteria. After six or eight quarts of cream 
have been Pasteurized by raising to a temperature of 
168 degrees F., and rapidly cooling it to 74 degrees F., 
the culture is poured into it and thoroughly mixed. 
This cream is then placed in the ripening room for two 
days, and is then churned and the buttermilk saved 
for further use. The large vats of cream received no 
preliminary treatment, but were inoculated with the 
buttermilk saved from the small churning before 
mentioned. The cream was then allowed to ripen at 
the usual temperature for 24 hours, and was churned 
in the ordinary way. To perpetuate the culture a 
small quantity of ripened cream should be taken out 
before churning, and set aside to inoculate the cream 
for the next churning ; this should be repeated as 
long as the good effects of the original culture are 
seen, which is from four to six weeks, according to 
the testimony of the expert. 
The process is not complicated after obtaining 
the pure culture, and I can see where it might be 
used to advantage in creameries where difficulty is 
experienced in obtaining a good flavor to the butter 
during certain seasons of the year. At the time of 
this test at the creamery, two sample lots of butter, 
one made by the Conn process, the other plain, were 
sent to a prominent Philadelphia firm, and the judg¬ 
ment of the experts was, “ Either lot is good enough 
for the Queen.” Reports from others failed to note 
any marked difference in the quality of the butter. 
I believe that it is not claimed that any artificial 
process of ripening cream can be made to improve 
upon natural ripening at its best, but merely to 
counteract the action of rank flavors arising from im¬ 
proper handling. A s the Franklin County Creamery 
has such perfect facilities for handling cream at all 
seasons of the year, it is a question whether the man¬ 
agement will adopt any artificial process of ripening. 
The History of the Creamery. 
The plan of organizing so large a corporation, orig¬ 
inated in the minds of a few of Franklin County’s 
most prosperous farmers and business men, and re¬ 
sulted in organization in the month of October, 1890. 
The newly formed association at once commenced to 
construct a creamery building 180 feet long by 50 feet 
wide, two stories high above the basement, and when 
completed, had it fitted with the best butter-making 
appliances that were known. The association did a 
continually increasing business until June 20, 1892, at 
which time the creamery building and contents were 
entirely destroyed by fire ; but the fire did not burn 
out their energy, pluck and faith in the success of the 
undertaking. The association reared at once on the 
same site a new building, a duplicate of the first, 
within the almost incredible time of 58 days, and 
kept the business going 
meantime in vacant or 
hastily constructed 
buildings in the village. 
T h e association is 
doing a prosperous 
business, and with al¬ 
most general satisfac¬ 
tion to its patrons ; for 
it is, in ope sense, co¬ 
operative, the associa¬ 
tion charging about 3% 
cents per pound for 
gathering the cream, 
making and marketing 
the butter, and the 
patrons get the full 
benefit of the market 
price, which is consider¬ 
ably in advance of dairy 
or ordinary creamery 
butter prices. 
The Babcock system 
of testing milk is used, 
and one man’s time is 
exclusively given to 
handling samples, and 
accurately testing each 
patron’s cream. The 
association notices a 
marked improvement in 
the quality of the milk each year, showing that our 
farmers are realizing that the old-fashioned scrub is 
not profitable to keep. The average per cent of 
butter fat last year was 4.11. 
The process of making butter is about the same 
here as in other first-class creameries, but their 
method of cooling the atmosphere deserves special 
mention. The process rooms and storage room are 
supplied with pipes running horizontally on the side 
walls through which ammoniated brine is forced, and 
the effect produced thereby is greatly to lower the 
temperature. The rooms may thus be kept at any 
given degree of temperature that is required at all 
seasons of the year, thus entirely doing away with ice 
as a cooling agent. 
When the Franklin County Creamery was first pro¬ 
posed, many old dairymen pronounced the plan a fail¬ 
ure, alleging that such vast quantities of milk and 
cream could not be handled successfully, especially in 
hot weather, and that loss would certainly accrue to 
the projectors if they carried out their plans ; but the 
association materialized and has been growing in 
public esteem and confidence ever since. The increase 
of creameries in Vermont in the past five years has 
